Human Rights Archives - Page 4 of 45 - Civil Liberties Australia

CLA’s Human Rights Campaign

FOR THREE YEARS, CLA has been lobbying for a new Human Rights Act (HRA) for Australia.

We also want to improve the HRA in the ACT, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2024, and the Acts in Victoria and Queensland.

Here are background documents which outline the core campaign facts.

Coronavirus Pandemic: Statements by CLA

17 August 2020 1 Comment

For all the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, then in the longer-term recovery to normal phase, civil liberties and human rights must be integrated into every decision of all authorities. While a health and emergency policing response is vital, so too is ensuring that the maximum freedoms of Australians are respected at all times. Premiers and others are in danger of forgetting peoples’ rights matter too!

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Qld’s new Emergency law comes with inbuilt rights protection

27 April 2020 No Comments

Queensland’s four-month old human rights protection law is doing its job: in a new Covid-19 ‘Emergency’ law, there’s protection for Queenslanders because no provisions of the new law can over-ride the state’s Human Rights Act which came into force on 1 January 2020. Some other Australian jurisdictions should take note.

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Asylum seekers, refugees and Covid-19: most vulnerable, most exposed?

25 April 2020 No Comments

Vulnerable refugee claimants are at greater risk of catching Covid-19 illness because of where they are housed, and general poor nutrition and ill-health because of their poverty. Without incomes as the economy grinds to a halt, their plight is worsening. Meanwhile the Australian government appears to have a policy of deliberating slowing down their ‘day in court’ by appointing the wrong people to the main tribunal that hears refugee claims. CLA Director Jennifer Ashton tells the story.

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Apps may come to dictate our future ‘freedom’

17 April 2020 2 Comments

The more fear and worry, the more governments impose technology “for your own good”. With a virus pandemic, big-tech companies are offering surveillance solutions that are hard to resist in the short-term…but that may be ’trojan horses’ for a widespread big brother, non-parliamentary dominance once the Covid-19 panic has passed.

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Crisis causes power to aggregate centrally

28 March 2020 1 Comment

As the virus crisis bites deeper into daily life, more people are starting to question what freedoms and liberties we are giving up at the behest of an ever-shrinking ‘executive’ ruling group, comprising a hotch-potch of people from MPs to mining bosses and public servants with interesting track records. CLA member Carolyn van Langenberg airs some opinions alternate to the mainstream groupthink.

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Crisis is no reason to abuse secret powers

19 March 2020 2 Comments

While civil society is grating the government licence to use extraordinary powers during a medical emergency, that is no excuse to abuse people’s trust by bringing in draconian measures like over-the-top surveillance and elimination of the flimsy privacy rights we still retain, CLA says.

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Borders disappear…along with your right to privacy

16 March 2020 No Comments

A new rights-eroding law would increase the reach of police and spooks into our lives at the expense of our withering rights, says author Paul Gregoire writing for Sydney Criminal Lawyers. The Frankenstein legislation would enable five-ways open slather access to all phone calls, emails, data and even metadata.

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If your MP says they are ‘tough on crime’, show them this:

11 February 2020 No Comments

For all those politicians (and the media) who posture at being “tough on crime” and who bring in mandatory sentences to appear to be “smart” legislators telling magistrates and judges how to make decisions and pass sentences, hear this plea from a real live criminal lawyer dealing with the consequences of such irresponsible political action in the Northern Territory…

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Power elite to ‘capture’ Darwin, exert colonial-like control

7 February 2020 No Comments

Some academics are warning that surveillance systems mushrooming in Australia’s major cities are more than just police aids to fight crime: they are actually community management mechanisms designed to re-exert a form of colonial era control. Here’s what they say about new systems in Darwin and the NT.

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‘Absurd’ Dutton proposal castigated by judge

18 January 2020 No Comments

A Federal Court judge, tucked away during a hearing in the never-time of Christmas Eve, has lambasted Minister Dutton’s Immigration Department proposals for how to handle a refugee’s visa application as ‘absurd’ and ‘ridiculous’. Castigating the government, he has ordered a prompt decision by Dutton in a case where Australia has mentally tortured a Sri Lankan for nigh on a decade, including by using ’secret evidence’ against him.

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Category: Human Rights

CLA’s Human Rights Campaign

Coronavirus Pandemic: Statements by CLA

Qld’s new Emergency law comes with inbuilt rights protection

Asylum seekers, refugees and Covid-19: most vulnerable, most exposed?

Apps may come to dictate our future ‘freedom’

Crisis causes power to aggregate centrally

Crisis is no reason to abuse secret powers

Borders disappear…along with your right to privacy

If your MP says they are ‘tough on crime’, show them this:

Power elite to ‘capture’ Darwin, exert colonial-like control

‘Absurd’ Dutton proposal castigated by judge

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