Senator McCarthy described the move as an "unacceptable rion Issue No 2102, FEBRUARY 2021 CLA impingement" on the Territory government's ability to make laws CLA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CivilLibertiesAus/ for their people. "It is absurd that the NT and the ACT cannot Email newsletter of Civil Liberties Australia (A04043) Email: make laws for their own jurisdictions, and that Northern Territory Secretary(at)cla.asn.au Web: http://www.cla.asn.au/ legislation can be overridden at the whim of the federal ____________________________________________ government with no consideration paid to the best interests of Three OzDay letters seek justice for diverse local people," she said. groups of people "Whether or not you support euthanasia — and I recognise the complexity and sensitivity of the arguments for and against — it Civil Liberties Australia issued three ‘Australia Day letters’ in is beyond time to allow Territorians equal democratic rights to 2021. their fellow Australians by repealing the Andrews Bill.” https:// Under the decades-long tradition, CLA writes 1-2-3 letters to tinyurl.com/yyoolpy4 mark the day by requesting government attention to matters overlooked or not yet considered. State of the nation on euthanasia: In 2021, the letters covered: In 2021, Victoria has euthanasia law in place and WA’s new • To Kevin Andrews MHR, asking him to move a law begins on 1 July. The Queensland*, Tasmanian and SA “rescission” private member’s bill on the one passed two Parliaments are set to debate similar laws this year, and decades ago, which prevents the parliaments of the ACT indications are that they will follow the Victorian lead after and the NT passing a bill to legalise euthanasia, or dying earlier failed votes to do so. with dignity as some people call it. Surveys of Australian attitude to doctor-managed The federal law effectively makes 600,000-plus citizens of euthanasia have been taken for the past 70 years: basically the Territories second-class citizens, because they do not – depending on the question asked – support has risen from have the same voting rights as their State counterparts. about 50% in the 1950s to about 75% at least now, with • To the Attorneys-General and Corrections Ministers of all some recent surveys showing support as high as 88% and Australian jurisdictions, asking them to formally review the fairly uniform across major religions. censorship of mail to/from prisoners, including “protected” mail to their lawyers and educational mail. *The Qld Law Reform Commission report on the matter is expected in March 2021. • To the WA Police Commissioner (and the WA Minister for Police) requesting a formal apology to the people “falsely ACT MP also pushes for capital ‘right-to-vote’ and irresponsibly named” as “persons of interest” by WA The Member for Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh has been vocal on detectives during the more than two decades hunt for the the issue of territory rights for years. Claremont serial killer of young women (Bradley Edwards He moved in federal parliament in 2018 to rescind the Andrews’ has recently been convicted and sentenced to life in law. prison). CLA suggests WA Police/the Minister should also apologise to the civil liberties movement in WA, and “Territories should indeed be able to legislate on issues such as should ban the right of WA Police to “name” persons of voluntary euthanasia, which is currently restricted under the interest – and potentially save $1-2m a year in legislation,” Leigh told CLA. compensation payouts. “We Territorians deserve to have our democratic voices heard, The full letters can be read on the CLA website: https:// and the ACT parliament has certainly demonstrated itself fit to www.cla.asn.au/News/ If/when replies are received, they will be handle a difficult challenge such as voluntary assisted dying. posted there also. “…if anyone looked around the parliaments around Australia, they would (not) say anything other than that the ACT NT politicians want equal rights for all Aussies Legislative Assembly is easily the intellectual equal of any other All four of the Northern Territory's federally elected members parliament around Australia, and so should have the right to believe the NT should be able to make its own laws on assisted legislate on voluntary assisted dying… dying… “Reasonable people can differ on the substantive issue of …but a bill passed by the Commonwealth in 1997 is still euthanasia. But Territorians should support territory rights. preventing them, and the ACT, from doing so. “The position of Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, Senator Dave The NT's two senators — Labor's Malarndirri McCarthy (photo Smith and member for Solomon Luke Gosling, is to have right, and the Country Liberal Party's Sam McMahon (left, SBS reservations about voluntary euthanasia, but to support territory pic) — say the federal government should not have the power rights.” to stop territories from making laws on the issue. Leigh pointed out that the ACT Labor reps in parliament – himself, Alicia Payne and Dave Smith – all support territory rights and for the ACT to be able to make its own laws. By contrast, he said, the ACT’s only Liberal rep, now Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Zed Seselja, supports the government position of denying full rights rights to ACT residents. https://tinyurl.com/yysc9jkb https://tinyurl.com/ y57y6oh8 HR Council questions Australia’s commitment Many countries are questioning Australia’s commitment to human rights, particularly since our federal and state politicians refuse to raise the age of criminal responsibility for children from 10 to at least 14. Civil Liberties Australia A04043 CLArion – 1 February 2021 www.cla.asn.au 1 Countries are also questioning why Aboriginal Australians, at based on now-discredited wrist X-rays, which lawyers for 3.3% of the population, comprise 28% of people in jail. There Australia claimed in court proved the children were adults. are also queries on why Australian soldiers have not been Yasmin spent two years in a maximum security prison, with brought to account for alleged murders committed in adults. In 2012 he was deported to Indonesia because of Afghanistan starting some 18 years ago. doubts about his age, and in 2017 his conviction was The questioning is part of the HRC’s regular universal periodic overturned. review, in which all countries are examined in turn about every In 2012, the Australian Human Rights Commission ruled that four years on their commitment to human rights. Australia had committed “numerous breaches” of international Non-government agencies, including CLA, toil away for two human rights law between 2008 and 2011 by giving “little weight years to present the HRC inquisitors with a more down-to-earth to the rights of this cohort of young Indonesians” as prosecutors view of the nation’s “achievements” than the whitewashed and police faced pressure to “take people smuggling seriously”, version proffered by the Attorney-General’s Department and the according to Paul Karp, reporting in The Guardian. Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade. https://tinyurl.com/yx8ua4mq The cases are due back in the federal court on 21 February for Seminal series aims to ‘rescue’ Indigenous kids a case management hearing. Disclosure: Lead lawyer for the Guardian Australia has been running a telling series, Childhood former children is Sam Tierney in custody, to examine the over-representation of Indigenous (photo), CLA’s treasurer, from law kids in the juvenile “justice” system in Australia. firm Ken Cush & Associates in For example, about 1000 children are locked in jails on any Canberra. night. Of them, about 54% are Indigenous kids, even though The Australian government is Indigenous children comprise just 6% of 10-17-year-olds. denying the children’s allegations, A 2018 study found that almost every child in detention was fearing a massive compensation “severely impaired” in at least one brain function, be it memory, payout. https://tinyurl.com/y4lj4983 language, attention or executive function – which limited their https://tinyurl.com/y2b4ea2p ability to plan and understand consequences, the Guardian reported. ODD SPOT: Australian Indigenous kids disproportionately targeted by punitive policing. extremists revealed…including political links Indigenous kids: trapped behind bars https://tinyurl.com/ A revealing and analytical article by Anne Davies in The y68ufof2 Guardian outlines the genesis of some far- and ultra-right Indigenous kids: rounded up by WA cops https://tinyurl.com/ movements and websites in Australia. Trumpian in their use of y6za8jof social media, the groups are linked closely to elements at the Aussie pollies lack Dutch courage conservative extremity of the Coalition parties, Davies says. They use sweet-sounding organisation names to attract In a directly parallel example of fraud by a government on its attention and online click-throughs; data they collect on website people, the Dutch government has resigned due to a scandal over benefits…but the Australian government has not. visitors can be distributed to MPs of their choosing. Their “truths” include anti-mask wearing and Covid-testing result The Dutch tax organisation wrongly accused more than 20,000 criticisms, as well as regurgitating material from other families of fraud over child benefits. Melbourne-based groups which claim Covid-19 is a global plot The government resigned a month before parliament was due to subjugate the world. It’s a great piece of investigative to break up ahead of general elections due on 17 March. journalist by Davies. https://tinyurl.com/y3wudggm Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s cabinet will act in caretaker mode until a new coalition is formed. Government fudges public ‘service’ numbers “The government was not up to standard throughout this whole About a fifth of federal workers are employed on external affair,” Rutte said at a media conference.