FACT/COMMENT: Australia vs. The World

Nice to see that David Marr is back at the Sydney Morning Herald. And here's a story by him that should be mandatory reading for anyone who's wondering why I'm doing this blog, or why Australia is what it is.

Australia was facing the [UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination]'s scrutiny for the first time in five years. The event went unreported back home and the verdict - handed down on March 12 - was the subject of only a few, scattered reports in the press. Australia was rebuked for its treatment of migrants, Muslims, asylum seekers, refugees and Aborigines. In the eyes of the Geneva committee, the list of this country's failures on the human rights front has only grown longer since the Howard Government came to office.

(snip)

In August 1998, the committee issued Australia with an "urgent action" notice - the first issued to a Western nation. Formal hearings in Geneva the following March found a risk of "acute impairment" to native title rights. The committee declared Australia in breach of its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. This was another first: the first breach finding made against a Western nation.

The former human rights commissioner Mick Dodson remarked sourly: "We're in the same company as Bosnia, Uganda and Ecuador." Canberra took Geneva's verdict very badly. Within 24 hours, the finding was denounced by Howard, Downer and the then attorney-general Daryl Williams, who declared the result "an insult to Australia and all Australians".

(snip)

On March 12 they again gave Australia the thumbs-down. Their language was far more diplomatic this time. Half a dozen positive findings were followed by a list of 19 "concerns and recommendations". Many had been raised before, in 2000. ATSIC, native title, the stolen generation, reconciliation, constitutional protection from racial discrimination, mandatory sentencing, the over-representation of Aborigines in prisons and the fate of HREOC may be dead issues in politics back home, but they're still alive in Geneva.

The list of fresh concerns raised by the committee in 2005 include the impact of temporary protection visas, the plight of stateless long-term detainees, the treatment of asylum seekers by the media, the shortcomings of the Racial Discrimination Act, the impact of counter-terrorism legislation that "may have an indirect discriminatory effect against Arab and Muslim Australians".

(snip)

Yet the race discrimination convention Australia signed up to in 1966 and turned into domestic law in 1975, is still the benchmark for all Australians arguing human rights. It's at the heart of all the rhetoric. The shame of seeing our own failings exposed by the committee was supposed to drive change. It's not working out that way. These days Australia's perceived shortcomings are causing more angst in Geneva than they do back home. (my emphases)

These are only some excerpts from the article - go read the whole thing, it'll be instructive. It's all there: the racism, the couldn't-care-less, the breathtaking arrogance towards the international community, the we-know-better-than-everyone-else, the everyone-else-is-wrong, the total and utter immunity to any form of criticism whatsoever... And Australians keep re-electing this government, election after election after election, because, as one must conclude, they either concur with all of this, or because they don't know and can't be bothered to find out. Either way it's not a pretty picture.

I've put the CERD report up over to the right in the Links section. Have a read.