FED: Sir Anthony Mason launches broadside at federal MPs = 2

AAP General News (Australia)
12-10-1998
FED: Sir Anthony Mason launches broadside at federal MPs = 2

Sir Anthony said human rights breaches in Australia could not be compared to gross physical
violations in countries like South Africa, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Indonesia.

But he highlighted the United Nations recent questions about our compliance with
international standards, for example, on August 11 when the UN asked Australia to provide
information on changes to the Native Title Act, Aboriginal land rights and ATSIC.

"It would be unwise to dismiss this request as being of no consequence," he said.

He noted that in late 1997 the UN found that the Australian detention of an applicant for
refugee status contravened an international covenant and the system of judicial review was
inadequate.

Sir Anthony said Australia would be subject to increasing world scrutiny as we moved
through the millennium to the Olympic Games, the centenary of the Australian Federation and a
referendum on the Republic.

"There is a genuine hope, indeed an expectation, that contemporaneously with this historic
conjunction of events, we can achieve a just and enduring reconciliation with our indigenous
people," he said.

"If that expectation is not realised, there will be disappointment and I doubt that it will
be confined to Australia".

When Australia criticised others for human rights violations, the riposte could be made
that this nation had not enacted a Bill of Rights guaranteeing the protection of those rights.

"We are virtually alone in the western world as a nation which has no constitutionally
entrenched or statute-based bill of rights," he said.

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KEYWORD: RIGHTS MASON 2 SYDNEY

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