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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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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Citizens of the ACT and NT are second-class Australians, and are forced to endure that status by Australian law. In any review of the ACT (Self-Government) Act 1988 of the Commonwealth – the legislation which set up the current ACT system – is it is of fundamental importance that ACT citizens gain equal rights in their own 'state' and nation to those of all other Australians, CLA says.

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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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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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The proposed WA Mental Health Act aims to deliver "best possible treatment and care", but the Bill does not reflect these noble words, says CLA lead author Rhys Jones. Rather than enhancing people's rights, the draft Bill actually increases the the ability for the State to treat people against their will, making life easier for the health bureaucracy rather than better for the mentally ill.

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