Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take great pleasure in having this opportunity and I thank the House for taking note of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I want to associate myself with the comments made by the Prime Minister of the country, Kevin Rudd, and the terms of the motion that he moved in the House in recognition of the 60th anniversary. They made me consider that 60 years in the span of human rights in the world is a very, very short time and that a lot of things have taken place in those 60 years that would make many members of this House and people right around the world consider just what a person’s human rights are, how they define them and how they are observed around the world.

The origins of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights came in the aftermath of the death of more than 70 million people in the Second World War and the persecution of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany. It was a very much needed benchmark. It was a standard that was established after those events to ensure not only that we drew some sort of line in the sand but also hopefully that these events would never take place again. Sadly, although maybe not on same scale, over the past 60 years there have been many tragedies and many abuses of people’s human rights across the globe. It is a great shame that those sorts of things continue to take place.

On 10 December 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Following this historic act, the assembly called on all member countries to publicise the text of the declaration and ‘to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories’. I think that was a very important step forward for the world.

Australia has always considered itself to be a middle-order power but a power that punches well above its weight. It is something that we often say in this country. Nowhere is that truer than in Australia’s participation in that declaration. Following the Second World War, Australia played a very significant part in the shaping of both the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself. With 16 other states, Australia was an inaugural member of the human rights commission that began the work on the universal declaration.

It was originally proposed as an international bill of human rights and Australia was one of only eight countries represented on the subsidiary drafting committee. Then, along with 48 other nations, on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, in a plenary session of the General Assembly, we voted to adopt that declaration. I am not sure if ‘congratulations’ is the right word, because it was so important an event that it needs much more than that. An exceptional contribution was made towards these documents by the then Minister for External Affairs, in both the Curtin and Chifley governments, Doc Evatt—Dr H.V. Evatt. That has been widely acknowledged by people in this country and in others as well. All those who understand the history of it understand the important role that he played in ensuring certain sections of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were what they are today.

I think all Australians should reflect on just what is contained in the declaration and what it does mean, because today we face many of those problems and issues that existed more than 60 years ago. I have in my electorate people of Vietnamese and other ethnic descent who are still fighting for basic human rights in their home countries—the rights of freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and a range others—that we in Australia just see as so ordinary and normal that we do not give them a second thought. But when people cast their vote in a free, open and democratic society they do not really consider just what it takes to have that right and that freedom when people in other countries not only risk their lives but lose their lives for that same freedom.

I think it is important that Australians reflect on just how significant and important the rights and freedoms are that we have here which are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights include the idea that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and that people are entitled to rights and freedoms:

… without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

In this country, we accept that as the norm. It is so normal that sometimes we do not even consider its very importance. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude and no-one shall trade in these forms. No-one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, and everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

They are all things that we consider so ordinary in this country but which are so extraordinary in many other countries around the world today. That no-one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile is something that we should be vigilant about, that we should continue to observe and that we should never let our guard down about. I know other speakers have talked about this, but you can never let your guard down. You must always be vigilant and you must always ensure that the role of government in your own country and everywhere else around the world is to always continue to respect and recognise just what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is all about—that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution, and that race, asylum and the status of people such as refugees do not become political issues in themselves. History ought to teach us, and teach us well, about those countries that have in the past progressed along those paths and just where those paths may lead.

Everyone has the right to a nationality, and even today in Australia we find that we must deliberate on issues of people’s statehood, of their nationality, of their rights to immigration or asylum and even of their rights to association and freedom. The articles set out that everyone has a right to freedom of thought, of conscience and of religion, and those rights include the freedom to change their religion and to change their beliefs. These are basic human rights. Everyone has a right to the freedom of opinion and expression. Again, these are things that we in Australia find to be so ordinary yet in many other countries those rights are not observed. I have sitting beside me today the member for Moreton, who has in his constituency a number of people from countries where they are not observed, and those people are here in Australia as refugees, seeking asylum, support and the friendship of a country such as Australia in understanding the position that they are in.

Everyone has a right to work, to a free choice of employment, and everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. That is something which, sadly, still does not quite exist in this country. We understand that women in this country are still not paid in general terms equally with men. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of their own interests. That is something that we might take for granted and from time to time slip into debate about in this country and in this place, but it is a basic tenet of human rights. I recall that in one of the very important stages in the Second World War, very strategically, the first people to be persecuted in Nazi Germany were union leaders and union organisers. By removing their capacity to organise people, they removed the ability of ordinary citizens to have a voice and to have a say. So the reason people as an evolutionary process actually organise themselves into such groups is something that we must always respect and that we must understand way beyond political debate. It is for their own protection. They organise themselves to protect themselves from others.

Everyone has the right to education. Everyone also has the right to be free in education and to be given those opportunities. I think that is something that all members of this House agree with and support.

I want to associate myself with the comments of the Prime Minister in supporting and noting the 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ensure in any small way that I can that people do understand and acknowledge its importance and that we are remain vigilant today. It is as important today as it was 60 years ago when it was first instituted.

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