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Human Rights? That's For Democracies, Sez Howard Government To prove Australia is anything but, the Attorney-General Daryl Williams has introduced a new bill, Human Rights Commission Bill 2003, that would force a revamped Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to seek permission from his office before it could apply to intervene in legal cases. Victorian Equal Opportunity Commissioner Di Sisely says the plan to replace the commission with a new body called the Australian Human Rights Commission was "a dangerous vioilation" of democracy. The planned changes, she says, would "compromise the commission's independence and intervention powers and lead to a serious erosion of human rights protections." But wait, there's more. Williams would also have the power to appoint complaints commissioners: lawyers who would conduct hearings of human rights complaints on a part-time basis alongside the hearings conducted by the full-time president. What's it mean? "Unclear," says a spokeswoman for Human Rights Commissioner Sev Ozdowski. And that's just the way the Howards want it. "Domination through Obfuscation" is their motto. What's it really mean? Eithne Mills, a Deakin University family law lecturer says: "Williams is tightening the noose on human rights to punish the commission for intervening on human rights grounds in court cases such as the Tampa boat incident, asylum seekers, marriage and lesbian access to IVF. That's what it means. And the reintroduction of the ASIO bill in Parliament will seek to tighten the police state noose on everyone. Saddam Hussein, who we are sending troops to depose, would have thought of this one ages ago. From an article by Steve Dow in The Age. |
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Published in Melbourne, Australia by the Political Prisoners of the Future.