Antinuclear

Rudd govt must reinstate Racial Discrimination Act

Dump racist intervention measures: QC WA Today  Tara Ravens October 7, 2009 – A leading human rights lawyer says the federal government must rework or scrap racist elements of the intervention program in remote indigenous communities and honour Australia’s obligations under international law.

Labor is moving to reinstate the legislation that allowed some of the more controversial measures to be rolled out. But Julian Burnside, QC, said Australia would fail as a signatory to a number of UN conventions and violate its own laws, unless there are changes to the intervention’s “overtly discriminatory” measures.”This is a moral obligation on the part of the government and nothing less would be acceptable,” he said in a statement on Wednesday………………..

The former Howard government suspended the Racial Discrimination Act to allow for the intervention’s more extreme measures, such as compulsory welfare quarantining.

But the Rudd government announced plans to reinstate the Act when it gave public support to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Mr Burnside said that if Australia wanted to abide by the agreement it made with 144 other countries in April, it had to take into account the findings of the UN’s special rapporteur on indigenous rights………………..

Professor James Anaya described the intervention as racist and discriminatory following his tour of Australia in August.

Dump racist intervention measures: QC | watoday.com.au

October 7, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, uranium | aboriginal, antinuclear, Australia, nuclear wastes, uranium