Heroes and heroines emerge in war and in peace. A forgotten Aussie hero, brave on the front line at ANZAC Cove in April 1915 and resolute in framing the world's human rights 30 years later, has left a personal legacy which even today continues to shape a better world. CLA's CEO Bill Rowlings tells the story.

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Politicians don't take mandatory declarations of their interests seriously, says Prof Ross Fitzgerald. In virtually all cases, the lists involve tokenism and hide as much as they reveal, certainly about the entire family's asset base. As well, the lists are largely silent on key issues like faith-based memberships, which may sway important votes on marriage, charity status, aid donations and the like.

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Mandatory, see-through, airport scanners ride roughshod over our civil liberties, CLA says in its submission to the Senate Committee set up to rubber stamp the proposal. The federal government is hell-bent on forcing us to go through the revealing scanners, without an alternative pat-down procedure, from 1 July 2012...even though two of the world's most security-conscious nations, Israel and Germany, have actively rejected them, as CLA's video on the proposal demonstrates.

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Torture, detention and rape are being used to control society in our near-neighbour countries, a Director of the Asian Human Rights Commission said in Australia recently. He called on Asian Australians to speak up about abuses of human rights in their 'home countries'.

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"Laws without morals are useless" is the motto of a prestigious US university but not, it would seem, a guide for the Australian Governmnent in High Court litigation against the land and property rights of Aborigines. Barrister Ernst Willheim argues that the government should include human rights and non-discrimination principles in its Legal Services Directions so that a commitment to morality ensures just terms among justice for all Australians.

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The drug "war" is yet another example of hyperbolic rhetoric where political and law enforcement public relations spin has replaced practical analysis and fiscal common sense. When 'the powers-that-be' realise that the basis for tackling drugs should be economic savings to the nation – with improved health and crime prevention benefits as a by-product – we might start to get somewhere, Bill Bush writes.

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CLA has been calling for years for a green paper/white paper process to analyse and define Australia's foreign policy imperatives and objectives, in particular our focus on boosting human rights in the Asia-Pacific. Here Phil Lynch gives an excellent rundown of what new Foreign Minister, Mr Carr, should be concentrating on.

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At a conference in Doha recently, Catholic Bishop and CLA member Pat Power said the "64 years of pain and suffering the Palestinians have endured are enough". He called for a balanced treatment by Australian MPs of the rights of peoples in the Middle East.

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Regulating information to the masses has been the cornerstone of power retention throughout the ages, historian Humphrey McQueen told a Support Julian Assange gathering in Sydney. 'We could do with a WikiLeaks here in Australia', he says, to sort out bank misinformation and recover confidence in the cabinet office.

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Bob Carr brings a lot to the foreign minister job, writes former noted diplomat James Dunn. But he carries baggage as well, particularly in how he sees human rights. With CLA long advocating before parliamentary committees that the Department of Foreign Affairs needs to put much more – not less – emphasis on human rights, especially in the Pacific, Carr has a difficult and possibly uncomfortable road ahead.

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