Humand Rights Act

[OzAtheist]

Hi all, GetUp are/have been organising meetings to discuss the possible Australian Human Rights Act. There is a meeting next week which I am intending to attend.

I would like assistance for any questions or comments I could make at the meeting.

So far the only one I have thought of (that has relevancy to the AFA) is "Freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion". However I'd like to expand on that, so could you all help me put together a short and succinct commentary to go with the above statement.

Additionally if there are any other points you would like me to raise please let me know.

If you are interested in attending one of these check when they are on in your area (some areas have already been done) : http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/rights&id=517


I will be attending in a personal capacity only, no affiliation with the AFA will be stated or implied.

[Elbert]

Hi all, GetUp are/have been organising meetings to discuss the possible Australian Human Rights Act. There is a meeting next week which I am intending to attend.

I would like assistance for any questions or comments I could make at the meeting.
Good on your for going. Herewith a few ideas.
1.Human Rights must be explicitly stated in a Charter because although a number of rights are at present recognised and protected by common law; these rights can be restricted or removed by legislation at any time.
2.There must be no exceptions to these rights.
3.An Australian Human Rights Charter must override all relevant State legislation and require a referendum in order to be amended.
4.The Australian Parliament should be a major player in respecting, protecting and promoting human rights.
5. When introducing Bills, Government Ministers should indicate how a Bill is, or is not, compatible with Australia’s human rights obligations as written in an Australian Human Rights Charter.
6.To assist in this an Australian Government Parliamentary Secretary for Human Rights should be appointed to ensure that human rights are given more prominence.
7. Government departments, through their Ministers, should report to Parliament on their procedures and safeguards for protecting human rights in their decision-making processes.
8.The Australian Constitution prohibits the Commonwealth from making any law establishing any religion or imposing any religious observance; however, it does not prevent State Governments from imposing religious instruction – too often indoctrination – on students even in state schools. Furthermore, taxpayer-funded religious schools make religious indoctrination a compulsory subject.
9.Children have the right to be born to parents who want them and are able to take care of them and love them. For this reason it is essential that the right to pregnancy termination be written into any Human Rights Charter, so prospective parents cannot be forced to continue with a pregnancy when they know they will not be able to care properly for the child.
10.Children must have the right to comprehensive education about sex and sexuality, contraception and family planning and the responsibilities of parenthood. Without such information, their future success with relationships, marriage and child rearing will be unnecessarily difficult.
11.Either everyone has the right to advertise [conditional on following the law;] or no one has the right.
12.Legislation to create a Human Rights Charter should be enacted as soon as possible. To this end the commission should set a time frame for both a referendum and the setting up of such a Charter.
13.Individuals should be protected from the misuse of political power; be free of discrimination, and equal before the law.
14.No individual, group, company or organisation should have more rights than others. Currently, government approved organised religions are granted tax-free status for all their operations, placing an inequitable burden on honest taxpayers.
15.A Human Rights Charter must declare it illegal for everyone to discriminate against people who have no faith in supernatural phenomena, and no belief in a god or gods.
16.There should be a Human Rights Ombudsman heading a single Commonwealth anti-discrimination office that would cover the four existing areas of unlawful discrimination, as well as any new areas of unlawful discrimination included in a Human Rights Charter.
17.The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights should form the basis, with the addition of those rights the committee charged with enacting the legislation deem valid.
18.There must not be a Community Charter instead of a Human Rights Charter because a Community charter is too easy to change.

[OzAtheist]

Feedback from the Human Rights Consultation meeting.

It turned out quite different from what I was expecting, we were all seated on tables of 8 and basically brainstormed ideas.

I was able to throw in the 'freedom of religion, freedom from religion' idea, but didn't get much chance to put in any of the other ideas people had provided me. Nevertheless I found it quite a fruitful 2 hours.

There's a larger summary of the day on my blog http://ozatheist.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/national-human-rights-consultation/

As well as links to where you can submit your own ideas.

Cheers
Oz

[Elbert]

Thanks for that.... I'm pleased it was interesting. I wonder if anything useful will come of it.