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	Strong and effective racial vilification laws needed to stop the spread of racial hatred by Federation of Ethnic Community Councils, agencies Australia   Mar. 30, 2017   Proposed changes to Racial Discrimination Act defeated in Senate. (ABC News)   A late-night debate in the Australian Senate on proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act has been defeated by the Labor Opposition, the Greens, with the support of independent crossbenchers.   The Coalition Government had wanted to replace the words "insult", "offend" and "humiliate" in section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act with the term "harass".   On Thursday evening it became apparent the Government did not have the numbers to pass the changes. It means the wording of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act will not change.   March 21, 2017   Changes to race hate speech laws send wrong message to community, by Hugh de Kretser.   Proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act unveiled today by the Australian Government are unnecessary and risk encouraging racist hate speech in the community.   The Human Rights Law Centre’s Executive Director, Hugh de Kretser, said the Government has its priorities wrong.   ''Attempting to water-down Australia’s anti hate speech laws sends a troubling message to the community. It says this Government thinks the ability to say racially offensive, insulting and humiliating things is more of a priority than the pressing need to combat racism at every turn,'' said Mr de Kretser.   The Government’s decision to introduce legislation into Parliament was announced on Harmony Day – a day of celebration of cultural diversity which coincides with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.   The proposals would see ‘offend’, ‘insult’ and ‘humiliate’ removed from section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and replaced with ‘harass’.   Instead of combatting the spread of racism, Mr de Kretser said the Government was trying to fix a problem that does not exist.   “We just had a parliamentary inquiry into this issue. The inquiry’s report did not say the laws should be changed - it found the laws were consistent with fundamental rights and freedoms,” said Mr de Kretser.   Mr de Kretser said by signing up to the UN’s treaty on eliminating racial discrimination, Australia had committed to pursue positive steps to stop racial discrimination.   “The current laws strike a healthy balance between fundamental rights to free speech and freedom from racism. It’s hard to say how the courts would interpret these changes, but there’s little to be gained by essentially telling bigots that the Government thinks they should be able to say more racist things,” said Mr de Kretser.   The Government’s bill would also change in the objective standard against which harass and intimidate are judged – from a ''reasonable member of the relevant group'' to ''the reasonable member of the Australian community''.   “It’s critical to consider how racism impacts on the people subjected to it. We can’t expect a middle class white man, for example, to understand how an Aboriginal person experiences racism. The existing objective standard should be retained,” said Mr de Kretser.   The Government has also put forward a number of amendments to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s complaints process, which will affect people making complaints about other types of discrimination, including sex, age and disability discrimination.   “The Commission plays a critical role in making sure vulnerable people have somewhere to turn when they experience discrimination. It provides a low-cost, efficient and informal way to resolve complaints. Changes that make the process more efficient are welcome, but any proposals that would create a barrier to accessing justice should be opposed,” said Mr de Kretser. http://bit.ly/2mO4qcQ   Mar. 2017   Ethnic groups slam Turnbull government''s proposed changes Race Discrimination Laws. (Fairfax News)   The Turnbull government''s proposed changes to Australia''s race-hate laws risk opening the floodgates on racism and creating legal confusion, ethnic and cultural groups have warned.   Race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane led the charge against the "extremely disappointing" changes, which he said would signal that racism was socially acceptable.   "I still don''t understand what it is that people want to say that they currently are not already allowed to say," he told Fairfax Media. "It signals to people that it''s acceptable to racially offend, insult, and humiliate others."   Dr Soutphommasane said the deletion of "insult", "offend" and "humiliate" and the introduction of a new term, "harass", would create confusion and lead to "more litigation, not less" because it would render irrelevant 20 years of case law.   "We don''t know what the meaning of that word will be until courts consider it," he said. "This is not speculation, this is based on the history of how the laws operated."   Peter Wertheim, director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said Mr Turnbull was incorrect to assert the new laws would better protect minorities from racial discrimination.   He said there would be a "concerted effort" from cultural groups to convince crossbench senators to block the proposed changes.   "It''s not a big deal for most people, but for members of minority groups who have been on the receiving end of some very ugly forms of racial discrimination … it could be very significant," he said. "I think it could be a vote-changing issue federally."   Multicultural groups also reacted with disappointment. A letter co-signed by peak groups that form the Coalition to Advance Multiculturism, described the decision as "utterly shameful and at odds with the principles of multicultural Australia".   "We will oppose this latest attempt to amend Section 18C with all the energy and resources at our collective disposal," the letter, released within hours of the government''s announcement, read.   "We regard the argument in favour of weakening the legislation to be without substance. There is no evidence to suggest that the existing legislation impedes freedom of speech. If the government was genuine about freedom of speech, why the deafening silence on the many other pieces and legislation and areas of policy which severely restrict freedom of speech and other civil liberties?   "Racial and religious vilification violates the dignity of Australians, inhibits their ability to participate in Australian communal life, and severely damages the social fabric, which is the indispensable bedrock on which are built our freedoms and civil liberties."   President of the Chinese Australian Forum Kenrick Cheah said the group planned on making the amendments an election issue.   "Look at the demographics of Sydney, for example – there are a lot of seats out there which have very vocal multicultural communities," he said.   "I don''t think any multicultural communities have stood up for the changes – especially in marginal seats like Reid, Banks etc where, it is quite important that either side harness the multicultural vote – I can''t see how this is going to help anyone get votes from those communities."   Randa Kattan, the Arab Council Australia CEO, said the government was sending a "dangerous signal that it is OK to insult somebody" to a community "that faces the brunt of racism almost on a daily basis, if not on a minute-by-minute basis".   "This is actually a slap in the face to all communities who are facing racism out there, who are feeling, who are at the receiving end of daily harassment," she said.   "We only have to say something and you only have to watch social media to see how much hatred there is out there, so for the government, the highest power to come out and start talking about watering down an act that protects people on something they can''t change in themselves - they can''t change their race, they can''t change their ethnicity, they can''t change who they are - that is extremely dangerous and extremely problematic."   http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/22/legally-practically-and-morally-section-18c-of-the-racial-discrimination-act-must-stay http://bit.ly/2o30AgN   Dec. 2016   The Australian Government must maintain strong and effective laws against racial hatred, Aboriginal, ethnic and human rights organisations said today in a joint letter that responds to the inquiry into the racial vilification protections in the Racial Discrimination Act.   The release of the letter coincides with a meeting in Melbourne today between the UN expert on racism, Mutuma Ruteere, and Aboriginal, ethnic and human rights organisations.   Joe Caputo, Chair of the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia said, “While Australia is a proudly multicultural nation, sadly the evidence shows that more and more people are experiencing discrimination.”   “The Government should be doing everything it can to fight racism and hate speech in our community. At this time more than ever, it must send a strong message that the protection of vulnerable minority groups from racial vilification is a priority,” Mr Caputo added.   The letter emphasises the importance of the racial vilification laws in the Racial Discrimination Act in preventing the serious harm caused by racism.   Wayne Muir, Co-Chair of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, said, “For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia, racism is an everyday experience, with serious impacts on physical and mental health.”   “The current racial vilification laws help us build an Australia that we can be proud of – one that is free from racism, proud of diversity and celebrates the things that make us different. Weakening the law will only take us backwards,” Mr Muir added.   Hugh de Kretser, Executive Director of the Human Rights Law Centre, said, “We need strong and effective racial vilification laws to stop the spread of racial hatred and discrimination in the community. Weakening these laws would give a green light to bigotry.”   Mr de Kretser added, “Our current Federal racial vilification laws have been interpreted sensibly by the courts. They contain a broad defence that strikes the right balance between freedom of speech and freedom from vilification. We must not weaken them.”   The open letter also supports the Australian Human Rights Commission’s efficient mediation process for resolving complaints.   “The Commission provides a low-cost, informal way to resolve discrimination and vilification complaints. The majority of complaints that go to mediation are resolved. Only a handful go to court each year,” said Mr de Kretser.   The letter is supported by leading organisations and peak bodies including the Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT, Amnesty International, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia, Get Up!, Human Rights Law Centre, Lowitja Institute, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, Refugee Council of Australia, Oxfam Australia and the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency.   http://bit.ly/2gU7fum http://www.handsoff18c.org/ Visit the related web page
	A Common Charter for Collective Struggle by ESCR-Net International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights   The International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net) connects over 280 NGOs, social movements and advocates across more than 75 countries working to build a global movement to make human rights and social justice a reality for all.   The Universal Declaration of Human Rights established the vision and principles which recognize the interdependence and indivisibility of all human rights. This vision means that people are guaranteed civil and political freedom as well as economic and social well-being.   Economic, social and cultural rights concern essential values for a life of dignity and freedom - work, health, education, food, housing, and social security amongst others. People throughout the world share the struggle to make these human rights a reality for themselves, their families, communities, and nations.   A Common Charter for Collective Struggle   This Charter was affirmed by ESCR-Net Members during their Global Strategy Meeting in November 2016 as a shared analysis about common conditions deepening inequalities and leading to the impoverishment and dispossession of communities around the world.   Impoverishment and Dispossession Amid Abundance   We live in the most productive economy in human history with more than enough resources to feed, house and educate every human being, but these resources are not being used to meet these needs. Rather, there is a widening wealth gap that is concentrating the resources and productive capacity of the world into fewer and fewer hands while the majority face impoverishment and dispossession.   What’s more, many people have been taught that the substandard living conditions in which they struggle to survive, or that prompt migrants to move, is a result of their own poor choices.   “We need to shatter the myth that poverty is self-inflicted,” or somehow an inevitable byproduct of a global economy. Arguably, the current economic model has intensified over the past few decades. Initially piloted in Chile, the UK and US, and then imposed globally via structural adjustment policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and a series of trade and investment agreements, “neoliberal” rhetoric, regulation and policies have created a false dichotomy between freedom and equality and argued that markets free of government interference would most efficiently allocate resources and ensure economic growth.   These policies promoted deregulation for the elite, reduced taxation and public spending, privatization of public goods and services, and “flexible” labor markets.   Labor market deregulation has led to a growing informal sector, and the suppression of wages, a general worsening of working conditions and a weakening of wage bargaining power that has pushed workers, and in particular female workers, into vulnerable employment. These forms of exploitation are accompanied by dispossession in both rural and urban areas.   Contrary to its claimed promotion of freedom, the current economic system commodifies people and nature and often criminalizes the poor.   Whether via autocratic governments, the imposition of unelected officials on struggling municipalities, or international agreements negotiated behind closed doors, rights to political participation-which are interdependent with ESCR- are being consistently eroded in many contexts.   Labor, environmental and human rights regulations are treated as impediments to free markets and progressively weakened. At the same time, corporate pursuit of profit is subsidized through tax exemptions granted by governments competing for investment and corporate tax evasion through artificially shifting profits to lower tax locations or tax havens. This leaves governments with declining public revenue and/or growing debt.   Technological innovation and productive capacity have grown, but they have been matched by increasing unemployment and underemployment, stagnating real wages, deepening inequality and economic and ecological crises, which have fueled migration, social unrest and militarism.   In essence, “we are not poor; we are made poor. We can’t fight poverty but we need to fight against that which impoverishes us.”   The rules of the global economic system, in other words, permit profit to be privately enjoyed by a few while the majority (in both rural and urban areas) face growing threats to their livelihoods and their ability to realize economic, social and cultural rights in practice.   In many countries around the world, women face different and disproportionate impacts of these processes, leading to what is often referred to as the ‘feminization of poverty.’ Women are often denied access to land, financing and other productive resources, and often work in sectors that are under-valued by the formal labor market.   Their contributions are often made invisible, and their access to essential services, such as health care and education, are often lacking. As a result of conflict, migration spurred by economic necessity and other processes, many rural households are headed by women, yet they are not fully recognized.   Subjected to sexual harassment and other forms of violence, women often find themselves caught in the downwards spiral of impoverishment and without the capacity to effect lasting change in their situation.   The intensification of the market-driven global economic system, therefore, has presented grave threats to human rights, viable livelihoods, environmental sustainability and human dignity, in both the global North and the South. In the United States, for example, “capitalism is eating its middle class.”   This system tends to exploit crises (climate change, terrorism, global hunger) to further maximize profit and concentrate power in the hands of an ever-smaller elite. It is aided by the manipulation of public opinion, often via media outlets that are controlled by states and/or business interests, and which often suggest that a model premised on a drive for profit is the path to happiness, and suggests that those who challenge this paradigm are tantamount to criminals.   Corporate Capture of the State   As this economic model has intensified, it is nonetheless built on much longer histories of dispossession, and exploitation. Commercial interests in colonialism, slavery and imperialism relied on government support; today, we are witnessing the growing phenomenon of “corporate capture,” by which an economic elite undermines the realization of human rights and environmental sustainability by exerting undue influence over domestic and international decision-makers and public institutions.   This has been facilitated, in part, by drastic reductions in public spending and increasing reliance on private sector actors to provide essential services that fall under the responsibilities of states (education, health care, water distribution, etc.)   Corporations, financial institutions and investors have often relied on the collusion of States to extract and maximize profit. Since the widespread introduction of the neoliberal economic model in the 1980’s, many countries have seen elite private actors seize more power within the political system. This model finds expression in trade and investment agreements shaped by the interests of global capital to favor the plunder of common goods or so-called “natural resources” and the provision of cheap labor.   This has led to a “race to the bottom” that undermines regulation and pits workers or communities against each other in all regions. This has led, in many places, to a shift in the role of the State to serve as “an apparatus of global capital” instead of a regulator of public good.   In some countries, from the perspective of grassroots leaders on the frontlines of social justice struggles, they are confronting a corporate-police state, which is “increasingly willing to use police and military to serve the interests of capital instead of people.”   Despite decades of voluntary “corporate social responsibility” and apparent legal protections in some contexts, communities often face immense struggles just to secure information and participate in decisions affecting their future or access justice in the face of systemic violations of human rights.   Deepening Inequality   The world today is characterized by staggering degrees of inequality. As reported by Oxfam, “The gap between rich and poor is reaching new extremes. Credit Suisse recently revealed that the richest 1% have now accumulated more wealth than the rest of the world put together. This occurred a year earlier than Oxfam’s much-publicized prediction ahead of last year’s World Economic Forum. Meanwhile, the wealth owned by the bottom half of humanity has fallen by a trillion dollars in the past five years.”   At a time when a select few individuals and corporations have amassed more wealth than entire nations and where essential public services are increasingly available only to those with the money to pay for them, the gap between the rich and poor has reached unacceptable proportions.   The global economic forces that have broadened the divide between rich and poor have privatized and concentrated the world’s productive and natural resources in the hands of increasingly few. They have driven rising consumption, further aided by the planned obsolescence of goods and technologies, as vital to ongoing economic growth and profit, while treating nature as a commodity.   This has led to the destruction of forests, rivers and parts of our oceans, upon which many people depend for survival, as well as the contamination of air.   It has also destabilized the global climate, posing severe threats to the ability of countless people and their children to realize their human rights. “The ability of the environment to sustain life is threatened by climate change, perhaps the clearest symptom of a system driven by private profit over public good.”   With C02 levels in the atmosphere today, far higher than levels present on the planet for two million years, the global temperature today is higher than it has been in the last 115,000 years. Deep ocean warming is melting glaciers, driving fish and marine animals toward the poles at unprecedented rates, and raising sea levels faster than at any time in the last 2,800 years. Climate change has altered the timing of the seasons, and brought about more severe, and unpredictable, extreme weather patterns, including devastating floods, draughts and other phenomena.   In fact, these changes have disproportionally impacted the world’s poorest people, especially those who live off the land or live in precarious dwellings or low-lying coastal areas. These impacts usually are felt most strongly in locations far from the sources of the original carbon emissions or by the poor and marginalized in wealthier countries, who are neglected in times of natural disasters.   * Access the charter: http://bit.ly/2kbIVo2 Visit the related web page
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