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Dragged kicking and screaming: towards an Australian bill of rights : Comments
By Timothy Watson, published 12/6/2009Far away in the Australian political wilderness a policy issue with wide ranging implications has been simmering away.
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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognised that, in the exercise of their rights and freedoms, persons :
“shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing the due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society”.
Yet we find our individual "basic human rights" are diminished, ignored, by those pursuing their "special assistance" policy imperatives.
There is no respect when segegation by racial testing of Australian families occurs, such as ours. Yes, we remain segregated by racial testing !
Opposition to resolving the issues involved includes obstructive actions to prevent relevant issues receiving judicial attention, such as denial of legal assistance, despite the court's recognition.
Mere existence of a human rights framework fails to achieve the focus of attention and debate on such issues, fails to increase likelihood of attaining fully considered and just compromise to problems, whilst the HREOC declines to proceed to public hearings as doing so may question their support for racist "special assistance" programs...
Despite their efforts to ignore,government is finally addressing some of these, yet the campaigners for a racist Australia, including Father Frank Brennan, are fighting tooth and nail to maintain racial division and racial qualification of human rights...
The purpose of the Australian Bill of Rights is to water down the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, not strengthen it.
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