AHRC Race Commissioner calls for criminalisation of race hate at UN Hearings

Tuesday, 17 August 2010 11:33

GRAEME INNES
Race Discrimination Commissioner
Australian Human Rights Commission

I acknowledge the Chair and CERD Committee, the Australian Government delegation, and the Australian NGO delegation, in particular Dr Djiniyini Gondarra from East Arnhemland, and Rosie Kunoth Monks from Utopia. The Commission Shadow Report recognises, and welcomes, the Government's positive achievements addressing racial inequality in Australia. We recognise the constraints on Government of caretaker convention. And we welcome their commitment to maximise their participation in this session. I'll make three brief observations, and then turn to key issues from the Commission report.

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Why a sustainable Australia needs multiculturalism

Monday, 16 August 2010 11:10

Sustainable population – not a debate about who we want here

The debate about a sustainable population for Australia only makes sense if it involves all Australians – as citizens, as producers, and as consumers. So the debate has to make sure everyone feels they have a stake and their input is respected; not only the middle aged, middle class, male and generally White people who dominated Dick Smith’s “population puzzle” video on the ABC last Thursday night, and were barely leavened in the Q and A studio audience by Suvendrini Perera, (Curtin U academic and Fairfax OpEd writer) on the panel, and Tanveer Ahmed and his dad on the floor.

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What’s on offer in election 2010? - the policy vacuum at the heart of multicultural Australia

Monday, 16 August 2010 11:14

Politics, Policies and Cultural Diversity

This Federal election has been a round-about of personalities, melodrama and policy parries. There is a real social world out here, where a majority of people live an every-day multiculturalism. For the forty percent or more of Australians who come from non-Anglo backgrounds and the rest who experience its benefits, it’s worth reflecting on what the future might be like if there was a policy debate in which cultural diversity was valued and productive diversity advanced.

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Stephen Mayne crits Dick Smith's doco

Friday, 13 August 2010 09:34

From Mayne Report 13 August 2010 
The population debate has well and truly hotted up since our last missive on August 10 thanks to Dick Smith's extraordinary ABC documentary last night and the counter-balancing debate moderated by Tony Jones on a special edition of Q&A. The whole exercise was a bit like May 2007 when the ABC screened Martin Durkin's polemic, The Great Global Warming Swindle, which would have been a disgrace for our national broadcaster but for the complete demolition exercise in the subsequent Tony Jones led debate broadcast immediately afterwards. Despite having the three major political parties all advocating cuts to immigration on the Q&A panel, Dick Smith won't have enjoyed much of last night's debate when his arguments were dismantled and he was reduced to repeating his mantra that the world is over-populated and chewing through finite resources. 

Read more: Stephen Mayne crits Dick Smith's doco