Today marks the anniversary of the United Nation Assembly's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.Over the years, a whole network of human rights instruments and mechanisms has been developed to ensure the primacy of human rights and to confront human rights violations wherever they occur.
The shocking truth is that Australia doesn't have that much to celebrate when it comes to Human Rights.
I'll leave our shocking treatment of asylum seekers for another day. Today I want to focus on the right to life with dignity for first Australians. A right we're still trampling all over!
Although the Government recently signed up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, they have suspended the Racial Discrimination Act in the Northern Territory to enact the "Northern Territory Intervention".
Our values partners Amnesty International and Australians For Native Title & Reconciliation are both campaigning to end this human rights violation.
If you value your human rights do something to help someone else's!
Amnesty International invited a few of us to attend a special breakfast with Nobel Peace Prize Winner and champion of human rights, His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.
We felt very fortunate to go and hear not only from His Holiness, but also from a brilliant Aboriginal woman - Professor Larissa Behrendt from the University of Technology Sydney. Larrissa spoke passionately about the injustices of the NT intervention including increases in violence , malnutrition and truancy.
So I encourage you to get the facts about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and check out some of the links above to support their human rights!
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