{"id":649707,"date":"2022-05-12T04:00:23","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T04:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/castancentre.com\/?p=5579"},"modified":"2022-05-12T04:00:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T04:00:23","slug":"human-rights-and-election-campaigns-never-the-twain-shall-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/05\/12\/human-rights-and-election-campaigns-never-the-twain-shall-meet\/","title":{"rendered":"Human rights and election campaigns: Never the twain shall meet?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Paula Gerber and Melissa Castan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easy to tell we\u2019re in a federal election campaign \u2013 politicians are everywhere, parading around in high-vis vests and kissing babies who just want to be back in their parents\u2019 arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also tell politicians are on the campaign trail by what they\u2019re not talking about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re not talking about human rights \u2013 neither major party has a policy to strengthen the protection of human rights in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is shameful, given we\u2019re the only Western country to not have a Bill of Rights. New Zealand, the US, Canada and the UK, for example, have all recognised that human rights are important enough to warrant protection in national legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not Australia. Mention a national Bill of Rights, and politicians run for the hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why does Australia need a federal Human Rights Act? Aren\u2019t human rights here already well-protected?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recently published two-volume collection<\/a> comprises 46 chapters by Australia\u2019s leading human rights experts and documents the many pressing human rights issues facing Australia. It doesn\u2019t make for pretty reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article considers just two areas where human rights violations are being perpetrated across Australia with impunity \u2013 against Indigenous peoples and LGBTIQ+ people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These issues need urgent attention, and should be part of the conversations we\u2019re having in the lead-up to a federal election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little progress on Indigenous rights<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re not making any progress in overcoming Indigenous inequality. A recent report<\/a> found that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the 30 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the NDICP [National Deaths in Custody Program] has recorded 489 Indigenous deaths in custody, including 320 in prison, 165 in police custody or custody-related operations, and four in youth detention.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That equates to more than one death in custody every month for three decades. How can we as a country tolerate this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The systemic racism and structural inequalities that enable this to happen must be addressed. These include raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14. This would significantly reduce Indigenous youth incarceration rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indigenous youth comprise 6% of the 10-17 youth population, but more than half of all the young people in detention. This is because Indigenous youths are jailed at 20 times the rate of non-Indigenous children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australian governments, including state and territory governments, have committed to raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12, but this isn\u2019t enough. The age at which a child can be held criminally responsible shouldn\u2019t be lower than the age at which they can have a Snapchat or Instagram account (13).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entrenched disadvantage Indigenous Australians experience is only possible because of the structural discrimination embedded in our legal system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Uluru Statement from the Heart<\/a> is an invitation to work together to address this systemic discrimination by establishing a First Nations Voice to Parliament and a commission to explore treaty making and truth-telling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Uluru Statement was developed in 2017. Five years later, there\u2019s no sign our government is ready to accept the invitation and work with Indigenous Australians to build a better, more equal, future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protest marchers, one with a sign with the Aboriginal flag, reading \u2018We are still here\u2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No significant improvement LGBTIQ+ rights<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Marriage equality was attained in Australia in December 2017. Although many same-sex couples have tied the knot since then, there\u2019s been no significant improvement regarding the human rights of LGBTIQ+ people. Some of the pressing human rights violations that need to be addressed are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prohibiting gender-normalising surgery on intersex infants<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Approximately 1.7% of infants are born with sex characteristics that don\u2019t reflect the binary medical and social norms of \u201cfemale\u201d or \u201cmale\u201d bodies. Often, \u201cnormalising\u201d surgery is performed on these intersex infants to try to make their genitalia conform to cultural and gender norms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such surgeries, which are not medically necessary nor supported by scientific evidence, constitute a breach of human rights, and must be prohibited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Removing religious exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While all Australian states and territories prohibit discrimination of the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, some exempt faith-based organisations from complying with these prohibitions, even if they\u2019re providing services traditionally provided by government, such as healthcare, education and social services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is that religious schools can fire teachers<\/a> for being gay, and expel students<\/a> on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Banning \u2018conversion therapy\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Conversion practices is the name given to pseudoscientific endeavours that involve psychological and physical interventions, often faith-based, to try to change a person\u2019s sexual orientation or gender identity. Such practices are often psychologically damaging and lead to higher risks of psychological stress, poor mental health, self-harm, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conversion practices are inherently humiliating, demeaning and discriminatory. Despite constituting a fundamental breach of human rights, they\u2019ve only been prohibited in three Australian jurisdictions \u2013 Victoria, the ACT and Queensland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A nationally coordinated response is required to ensure such practices are comprehensively and uniformly banned, and to support survivors of such trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protecting the rights of transgender and gender-diverse people<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The tsunami of anti-trans laws being introduced across the United States is truly staggering. A moral panic<\/a> is fuelling numerous pieces of legislation requiring transgender athletes to compete in sports according to the sex assigned to them at birth, which is completely contradictory to the IOC Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations<\/a>, which provides that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo athlete should be precluded from competing or excluded from competition on the exclusive ground of an unverified, alleged or perceived unfair competitive advantage due to their sex variation, physical appearance or transgender status.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Laws have also been passed in multiple states, prohibiting any discussion of gender identity in classrooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps most troubling of all are moves to define gender-affirming health treatment as child abuse, turning supportive parents of trans children and medical practitioners into criminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Australia, the anti-trans views being expressed by politicians such as Mark Latham<\/a> and candidates such as Katherine Deves suggest we may be heading down a similar path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve already seen attempts to wind back the human rights protections LGBTQ+ people fought so hard to achieve. Some of these have failed; for example, neither the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 (Cth) nor the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 (NSW) were passed by parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, other attacks on LGBTQ+ people have been more effective, including the defunding of the Safe Schools program.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having a national Bill of Rights would not immediately fix all of these problems. But it would be a good start. It would elevate the level of debate about human rights in this country, but would need to be accompanied by improved independence and increased funding<\/a> for the Australian Human Rights Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s time to ask our politicians the hard questions about what they intend to do to strengthen human rights protections if, on 21 May, the Australian people elect them to form government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Paula Gerber <\/a>is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at Monash University, and a member of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. She specialises in international human rights law,<\/em> with a particular focus in LGBTI rights and children’s rights. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa Castan<\/a> is an Associate Professor<\/em>\u00a0in the Faculty of Law at Monash University, and the Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. She teaches, researches and writes on Australian public law, Indigenous legal issues, human rights law, and legal education<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from\u00a0Monash Lens<\/a>\u00a0under a Creative Commons licence. Read the\u00a0original article<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This post was originally published on Castan Centre for Human Rights Law<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Paula Gerber and Melissa Castan It\u2019s easy to tell we\u2019re in a federal election campaign \u2013 politicians are everywhere, parading around in high-vis vests and kissing babies who just want to be back in their parents\u2019 arms. You can also tell politicians are on the campaign trail by what they\u2019re not talking about. They\u2019re [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":496,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48650,48651,48652,1511,37389,48653,175,1558,47974,6469,48649],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/496"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649707"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":713278,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649707\/revisions\/713278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}