Sixty years ago, in the aftermath of the deaths of some 70 million people in the Second World War, the nations of the world came together to endorse the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was an event with no historical precedent - the nations of the world embracing a global expression of the basic rights and freedoms to which all human beings are entitled, and a standard which all nations could adopt for themselves and a standard by which all nations could also be held to account.
Sixty years on from 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights remains the global benchmark for the protection of human rights. It remains as relevant to every person in a world of 6¾ billion today as it was to the 2½ billion people who were alive in 1948.
It speaks to our responsibilities wherever there is a violation of human rights against any person for any reason and in any part of the world, by any government, any corporation, any organisation or any individual. It transcends nations; it transcends cultures; it transcends politics; it transcends personalities; it transcends creed and tongue.
It speaks to the murder of innocents in Darfur, the treatment of political prisoners in Burma and the ongoing conflict in the Congo that has recently displaced hundreds of thousands of people. It speaks to the plight of millions of refugees around the world who have fled their homelands in fear. It speaks to the severe poverty that contributes to the premature deaths of 18 million people around the world every year and one in three people dying from preventable diseases. And it speaks to the responsibilities of the international community in all of these areas.
Some of these threats to human rights are close to home; others are far from our shores. But for Australians our belief is in the fair go for all, and this belief does not stop at the continental shelf. It transcends our shores; it extends to the world at large. We believe in a fair go for everyone, everywhere, and that belief in a fair go means that as a nation we seek to make a difference and support human rights and fundamental freedoms around the world and at home. We, therefore, do not just stand idly by while there are denials of basic freedoms and basic rights, wherever that may occur. We recognise that the casualties of inaction are dignity, fairness and justice.
That is why today I move this motion in recognition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its continuing importance in the 21st century. As Australians we can be proud of our long history of involvement in the promotion of universal human rights through the United Nations.
Following the Second World War, Australia played a significant role in shaping both the Charter of the United Nations and the universal declaration itself. Alongside 16 other states, Australia was an inaugural member of the human rights commission that began work on the universal declaration, which was originally proposed to be an international bill of human rights. Australia was also one of eight countries represented on the subsidiary drafting committee. Along with 47 other nations, on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, we voted in a plenary session of the general assembly to adopt the declaration.
The exceptional contribution made towards these documents by the Minister for External Affairs in the Curtin and Chifley governments, Dr HV Evatt, is widely acknowledged. Evatt understood that economic security and political freedoms were critical to international security. He fought tirelessly for a strong and positive commitment to those rights and freedoms in the universal declaration. And he had the honour to be the President of the United Nations General Assembly when the universal declaration was finally adopted. That was a good day for Australia.
Indeed, the Australian delegation to the third session of the general assembly in 1948 reported in relation to the universal declaration:
Australia has from the beginning been one of the leaders in this field. We urged at the Paris Peace Conference that the peace treaties with enemy states should contain effective guarantees of human rights. We have also played our part from the beginning as a member of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights which made the first draft of the convention. Australia was one of the first countries to urge that economic and social rights should be included in the Declaration.
The Australian delegation has worked successfully to keep each article clear and concise, expressing the broad fundamental human rights in which we believe. It has resisted attempts to write in a series of limitations, which would properly be done in a legally binding convention.
That, I believe, reflects a good Australian contribution to a good Australian document on what was and remains a good day for Australian diplomacy.
The government that I lead stands proudly in the strong tradition of the defence and promotion of human rights. As a middle power, we believe in a creative use of diplomacy to build stronger human rights protections in every part of the world. One of the most important ways Australia can contribute to advancing human rights today is through the Millennium Development Goals.
The Millennium Development Goals are among the most important commitments to human rights that the international community has made since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948. Around the world, nations have pledged to substantially lift their efforts to help achieve these goals and to eliminate the extreme poverty that denies more than 1.4 billion people the most basic life opportunities.
The government's strong commitment to the MDGs is reflected in our pledge to lift Australia's overseas aid to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015. Our MDGs commitment involves a contribution of just half of 1c of every dollar of our national income, yet it is large enough to make a real difference in the lives of so many millions of people in forgotten parts of the world and in forgotten parts of our own region. In this time of global economic downturn, which inevitably has its greatest impact on the world's poorest people, we reaffirm, as a government and as a nation, our commitment to the MDGs and urge other nations also to lift their efforts to these crucially important goals.
The Australian government is lifting our development assistance efforts in key areas such as health, basic education, water, sanitation, the environment and adaptation to climate change. We are giving priority to working with nations in our region towards the Millennium Development Goals through our own Pacific Partnerships for Development. Already the government has signed partnership agreements with Papua New Guinea and Samoa, and further partnership agreements are planned for the year ahead.
We have also recently outlined a stronger engagement with development efforts in Africa, which faces the greatest challenges in achieving progress on the Millennium Development Goals. Australia's commitment to help make poverty history in the 21st century represents an embodiment of the vision laid out in the universal declaration to ensure that, for all people, the rights to food, clothing, housing and medical care - the core components of wellbeing and a decent standard of living - are, in fact, delivered.
The Australian government is committed to advancing human rights at home as well as abroad. We are prepared to commit Australia to new human rights instruments where appropriate. Where we genuinely believe in the policy objective and genuinely believe we can adhere to our obligations, we will adopt and implement those instruments. We are committed to a positive engagement with the UN human rights system in implementing Australia's international human rights obligations. And we are willing to consider appropriate changes to laws, implementing our human rights obligations here within Australia. This approach is reflected in action we have already commenced on international human rights instruments relating to disability, discrimination against women and the use of torture.
In July this year, the government ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The government has also conducted consultations with states and territories on Australia's accession to the optional protocol to that convention. The government is also incorporating assistance for people with disabilities into our international development assistance program. The Development for All policy aims to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities and to promote international leadership on disability and development. The government is committed to the protection and promotion of the rights of women, both at home and abroad. The government recently moved formally to accede to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women - and it was high time.
The government is also committed to action on the optional protocol to the convention against torture, and consultations with the states and territories and other stakeholders on this matter are underway.
Australia's renewed engagement with the UN human rights system is reflected in the government's extension of a standing invitation to human rights rapporteurs to investigate the protection of human rights domestically.
We should have nothing of which we are ashamed. We should be open to global scrutiny. We should have always been open to global scrutiny. The previous government resisted such visits because it did not want the practices that were occurring in Australian detention centres exposed to scrutiny. We take an entirely different view. We believe that a universal declaration of human rights means what it says - that a civilised, modern government must be consistent in its respect for human rights at home and abroad. That does not mean that we will always accept every criticism of Australian practices made by human rights bodies; but it does mean that we believe in openness, engagement and transparency and that we should have absolutely nothing to hide. It means considering seriously any criticism of Australia's human rights practices, and it means making changes when our policies do not live up to our national commitment to the proper protection of human rights. That is why, in our first year in office, we have ended the inhumane, unfair and wasteful Pacific solution, ended temporary protection visas and substantially reformed Australia's detention policy. We have restored fairness and humanity to our treatment of people seeking asylum in Australia, while also returning strong and effective border security.
During the past 12 months the government has demonstrated its commitment and made significant progress in promoting and protecting human rights domestically.
Throughout the history of European settlement, our record of respect for human rights has been marred by the treatment of Indigenous Australians. The parliament sought to address one of the darkest chapters of that history earlier this year, when we offered a national apology to Indigenous Australians for the policy of forced removal of children that led to the stolen generations. The apology has helped to build a bridge of respect towards a better future for Indigenous Australians.
The apology was long overdue. The government has committed to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. This will be difficult to achieve; it nonetheless should be a goal for us all. To achieve this, the Australian government in partnership with the states and territories, has set six targets, including closing the gap in life expectancy, child mortality, early childhood education, literacy and numeracy, school attainment rates and employment outcomes.
We know that these are profoundly ambitious targets. Closing the gap is about making a reality of the universal declaration here in Australia today. These targets will require new approaches and substantial investment and they will not be achieved by the Commonwealth alone. They will require new partnerships with the private sector, the community sector and with states and territories. Towards these goals, the Council of Australian Governments last weekend agreed to invest $4.6 billion in initiatives across early childhood development, health, housing, economic development and remote service delivery over the next decade.
Another important aspect of human rights protection is recognition of human rights at work. With the Fair Work Bill 2008 introduced to parliament last week, Australia will close the book on Work Choices. In its place we will have a modern industrial relations system that recognises fundamental workplace rights, including the right to be represented by a union, the right to protection from unfair dismissal and the right to collective enterprise bargaining. These are basic and universal rights.
Another important step during our first year in office is the removal of discrimination against same-sex couples and their children. The government's same-sex reforms will set a new standard for fairness and consistency in Commonwealth laws. Their combined effect will be to eliminate such discrimination from around 100 laws of the Commonwealth. They aim to ensure that, in each amended law, same-sex couples and their families, for all practical purposes, have the same entitlements as opposite-sex de facto couples. The government will also soon deliver on our commitment to undertake an Australia-wide inquiry to determine how best to recognise and protect human rights and responsibilities into the future.
In 1943, only five years before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was agreed, a German pastor and theologian wrote a universal truth when, in his book, he said that ‘what is dearest to God is precisely the need of one's neighbour'.
As a churchman, Dietrich Bonhoeffer resisted the violation of human rights under the Nazi regime because, he said, ‘Only those who cry out for the Jews have the right to sing Gregorian chants.' Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right then; he is right today and he will be right into the future. Dietrich Bonhoeffer paid for that conviction with his life in 1945, but his message and that of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which arose out of the carnage of the Second World War are as relevant today as they were then.
Sixty years after its adoption, the declaration remains one of the most defining documents on the protection of rights and freedoms in the history of humankind.
Today this House affirms again - consistent with those who have gone before us, consistent with the efforts of those of previous Australian governments to secure the passage and the adoption of this great international instrument - Australia's strong commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our resolve as a nation, as a government and as a people to work on our own soil and to work with governments around the world towards the realisation of these rights for all peoples.