Sev Ozdowski was Human Rights Commissioner, The facts are:
Fact 1: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is schedule 2 to the Human Rights Act 1986.

Fact 2: The Acts Interpretation Act 1901,is a Law declaring a Schedule as a fully functional part of an Act, in S 13.

Fact 3: The ICCPR forms the basis of the Privacy Act 1988.

Fact 4. The ICCPR is referred to in S 138 (3) (f) Evidence Act 1995 and we are told where it can be found.

Fact 5: The ICCPR is described as "The Covenant" in the Criminal Code Act 1995 ( Schedule) Dictionary.

Fact 6: By Sections 5, and 109 Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act it prevails over every inconsistent State Law, and repeals the Australia Act 1986, because it was passed at a later date. ( A fundamental tenet of Statutory Interpretation).

Fact 7: The current Human Rights Commissioner, Catherine Branson, in fourteen years as a Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, not once applied its provisions.

Fact 8: The Reverend Father Brennan, should do his homework, and declare that he does not need to examine the ICCPR and its application, because it was ordained as law, 22 years ago. We have had a Bill of Rights, but no one has shifted the rock under which it has been hidden.

Fact 9: Anyone who can drive a computer mouse, can find it on the Official Roll of Laws passed by the Parliament of the Commonwealth, called Comlaw.

I believe, I believe it is time that someone started being honest. Probably starting with Robert McClelland and his staff, closely followed by the Staff and Judicial Officers in the Federal Court. It is a beautiful document,worthy of a Sovereign. The Second line of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, sets out who that Sovereign is. I believe in Him too. So too did the electors in 23 Federal Seats last election who found they could support a Labor Christian for Prime Minister. A real 21st Century miracle. Sixty years of Lawyer rule was ended

Personally speaking, I have lost rights and liberties over the past decade and more. I go by behaviour not by the rhetoric of politicians and the pronouncements of the intellectual elite and the sad fact is that there is now a host of government agencies who can interfere in my personal life and come onto my property uninvited without my approval. Private life and private property are no longer very private.

For a house I was building in Brisbane, the Council purported to tell me what I could do with the INSIDE of a new house as well as the external envelope, structure, style and features. Under the guise of allowing smaller housing lots and clever twigging of definitions, the town planning apparatcheks had managed to extend their 'small lots' regulations to include thousands of previously existing building lots that thirty years ago were the usual, reasonable size for many sub-divisions.

That is how we lose many of our rights, through the policy advising and exercise of delegations by unelected, faceless bureaucrats who are never accountable to the electorate.

On a country property where generations of my family have protected some scrub lands and a coastal lagoon from government (how often have they demanded the drainage of the 'swamp' for midges as they have done elsewhere). Recently we were contacted by an official to 'require' us not to touch the said scrub without government approval. Say what?

Both sides of government have or have tried to enact legislation to gag me and control my behaviour. In this, John Howard was no worse than his opponents, but was more up-front and less sanctimonious when doing so. Attempts to trash our individual rights would have been seen as an outrage back in the sixties and seventies. For instance, people back then would have taken to the streets over the video surveillance that is now commonplace and all for our 'protection' of course.

contd....

contd..

What about the federal government's ridiculous attempts to install an internet filter so that Big Sister can look over our shoulders while we are on the Net?

Have I mentioned the so-called privacy legislation that is abused more in the avoidance than compliance by government and ensures that I can easily be frustrated in getting information on myself while my information is shared around government agencies and with a revolving door of private contractors?

I understand that the author was a federal human rights commissioner. I wonder if he supports the legislation Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls has on the books to legalise 'positive discrimination' against white males? We must curtail the rights of some to give others rights it seems.

www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24771759-2862,00.html

In the media, the spokespeople of 'organisations' with highly secretive sponsors regularly demand curtailment of our personal rights and liberty. A few decades ago broadsheet editors wouldn't contemplate lending legitimacy to a secretive 'organisation' by printing its unfounded rhetoric, but now it is par for the course.

Sixty years of human rights in Australia? You could count the 'advances' on one hand after it has been stuck in a blender and then you have to factor in the collateral damage to the rights of others, whereas to sum the losses of human rights you could be totting away with a pencil stub for hours.

More government and its statutory authorities 'protecting' our rights? No thanks, lets get rid of the unaccountable statutory authorities that have blossomed over the years and reduce the ever-growing government octopus that continually finds more excuses to encroach on our rights.

I lasted for the first paragraph before I ripped up the article and threw it in the bin..(figuratively speaking :)

It happened when I saw these words:

<<UN General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); a document which set out a new direction for humanity.>>

HUMANITY?.....How arrogant is THAT?! Such a statement is just total rubbish.

There happens to be over a billion people in the Islamic world, and a billion people in the Chinese world... who do NOT SEE it as any such thing.

It might be a new direction for SOME of humanity but certainly not for all.

It's getting toooo close to 'secular religion' when it states almost dogmatically 'for humanity'.

PETER THE BELIEVER.. *welcome*.. we need more of your input!

(Peter Faris?)

I would rename the article 60 YRS of WESTERN POLITICAL IMPERIALISM.

Because to claim that the UN convention is for the whole of humanity when a very large chunk of humanity does not subscribe (or is not allowed to subscribe) to it is plain stupid not to mention arrogant.

No it is not Peter Faris, but I remember when we had rights, and oh how they have been trashed. The NSW electorate, before 1970 and in Queensland before 1991, had a very handy way of calling Government to account. It was called a Writ of Summons. Anyone could issue them, and they were not disposed of by a Lawyer appointed by the State Church ( government) but by the 12 electors chosen at random, from the electorate. The ICCPR restores those rights, and that is why Lawyers, hate it. To their credit, the Rudd Government is moving to abolish cartels, and has redefined the word "court" in the Trade Practices Act 1974, so that reforms introduced by the Keating Government applying to all Governments can be enforced. A Court ( Capital C)is not in line with the word as spelt in the Constitution, and Judge does not appear at all. The word in s 79 Constitution is “judges” without a capital J. It means a jury of electors. Since 1275, it was a basic English civil right not to have to submit to a Judge/ Priest appointed by the King ( Tyrant/government).

The English had a dispute with Rome, saying that any single judge was a pagan, because judging others is prohibited in the Holy Bible. ( Matthew 7 Verse 1) Things came to a head in 1533, and Henry VIII ended Roman Domination of England. When the Roman Catholics refused to support the first Constitutional Referendum in Australia, Protestant Politicians, had to do a deal, to get support, and had S 116 inserted in the Draft. Its purpose was to retain the established religion of Australia, but it has had the opposite effect. It has allowed non religious people to take over. Those non religious people are the lawyers. By taking electors ( sixty five percent Christian) out of “Courts” and installing Lawyer/Judges in place of juries, big business, including Banks, Councils, State Governments, and the Federal Government have been playing merry hell. The Rudd government is moving to fix it for us all

60 years of human rights? In what country mate?

More like millions of years of human wrongs, and counting.

There is no evidence that human beings have progressed much at all since we stood erect.

We still fight over nothing and everything, hate for little reason, often just appearance or a difference of opinion.

Food shortages will demonstrate exactly how far we have come. ZIP.

For goodness sake a majority of the world population still believes that Gods determine their fate. Various types of Gods. The main God in many countries today is money and then religion.

Both fantasies.

Human Rights indeed.

Th strong countries still sit back and do nothing while genocide is practiced in various countries, same as the Nazis. And we do nothing. Human Rights. Rubbish.

Open your eyes writer and stop writing trash.