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Keywords: Human Rights Act

  • AUSTRALIA

    NAIDOC Week is about shared pride

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 July 2024

    A failed referendum leaves many Indigenous Australians feeling unheard, but hope remains. This year's NAIDOC Week takes on even greater significance. This celebration, born from a desire for recognition, is a time to reflect on how to build a more just Australia.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Seeking refuge, finding red tape

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 05 July 2024

    There is no doubt that laws for determining refugee status and onshore protection are complex. The cases of NZYQ and ASF17 demonstrate that when laws regarding asylum and protection intersect with laws regarding character and protection of the community, the results can be extremely messy.

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  • RELIGION

    Everyone agrees we should protect the vulnerable, but who exactly are they?

    • Justin Glyn
    • 03 July 2024

    None of us — even those experiencing vulnerability, whether temporary or resulting from a permanent infirmity of some kind — should be perceived as an object of protection; instead, each one of us is a collaborator in our own care, and in the care of others.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Building constitutional bridges: In conversation with Frank Brennan

    • David Halliday
    • 28 June 2024

    It's been eight months since the Voice referendum, and people are starting to grapple with what its defeat means for Australia. There are few voices in Australia as qualified to conduct a postmortem of the outcome of the Voice referendum campaign as Frank Brennan. We examine what lessons can be learned and crucually, whether there’s reason for hope for Indigenous constitutional recognition.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Climate change and duty of care

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 07 April 2022
    10 Comments

    The children have been busy. On matters of environmental justice, Australia has witnessed much legal activity from youthful citizens who, despite in some cases not being old enough to vote, have stirred politics. In 2021, five lodged complaints with the United Nations over the failure of the Australian government to cut, in a meaningful way, greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

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  • CARTOON

    Discredit where discredit's due

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 25 January 2021
    1 Comment

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mobile phone bill threatens dignity and decency

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 24 September 2020
    21 Comments

    The objections to the legislation focus correctly on the infringement of human rights. That phrase, however, is bloodless. It might suggest that rights form a list to be ticked off. Human rights are better conceived as a way of speaking about the conditions necessary for people to live decent human lives. The proper place from which to reflect on them is the actual lives of the people who are affected.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Human rights and pandemic lockdowns

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 08 September 2020
    11 Comments

    The Buhler arrest stirred a range of responses from across the political divide, many troubled. Legal representatives and human rights advocates were similarly disturbed by what they regarded as a lack of proportion and restraint in police action.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The EU's refugee double standard

    • Ramona Wadi
    • 02 October 2018
    7 Comments

    The EU is facing the consequences of its own actions. It will not link political violence to migration, and wishes to maintain its humanitarian façade, so there is little opposition to what Salvini and his ilk are perpetrating against human rights. The web is now so tangled it is no longer a mere issue of racism.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Seven warnings for Queensland as it considers a human rights act

    • Frank Brennan
    • 31 October 2016
    3 Comments

    'First warning: if you're going to be serious about a Human Rights Act, make sure that your government departments are sufficiently resourced and encouraged to produce meaningful statements of compatibility. Second warning, especially in a unicameral legislature: make sure that your parliamentary committee on human rights has sufficient muscle and status to arrest the progress of any bill until it has been thoroughly scrutinised for human rights compliance.' Frank Brennan's remarks at the Fringe Conference of the 2016 Queensland ALP Convention.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Human rights acts after Brexit

    • Frank Brennan
    • 28 October 2016
    7 Comments

    Even prior to Brexit, the Conservatives were wanting to replace the UK Human Rights Act with weaker legislation. They have been worried about what they perceive to be a loss of sovereignty. But even the British Conservatives remain committed to some form of human rights act. I commend the Queensland parliament for undertaking its present inquiry, and sound a cautious note of optimism about the modest gains which might be made by the enactment of a human rights act in Australia.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Being clear eyed and misty eyed about human rights and asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 06 October 2016
    8 Comments

    Australia's policy is unique and unrepeatable by other nations because it requires that you be an island nation continent without asylum seekers in direct flight from the countries next door and that you have access to a couple of other neighbouring island nations which are so indigent that they will receive cash payments in exchange for warehousing asylum seekers and proven refugees, perhaps indefinitely. The policy over which Turnbull presides is not world best practice. It's a disgrace.

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