Do Australians own up to their own racism and discrimination?

How do Australians tolerate the 'soft' apartheid which operates in so many parts of their nation?
Posted by Advocacy at St Pauls on Tuesday, 22 December 2015

Refugees being frozen out of Australia to tropical Australia? Companies profiting from cruelty in detention centres will be frozen out by the City of Sydney.

Cross-posted with The Network and Beside The Creek

Campaign for Councils to refrain from doing business 

with companies that abuse human rights

Companies Involved In Offshore Detention

 Frozen Out By City Of Sydney

(IMAGE: Jason James, Flickr)

By Max Chalmers on December 15, 2015 Featured

A growing campaign to stop institutions from doing business with companies that abuse human rights has claimed a major scalp. Max Chalmers reports.

Companies profiting from the offshore detention of asylum seekers could be prevented from doing business with the City of Sydney after the Council resolved to review its investment and procurement policy and bring them into line with the No Business in Abuse campaign.

In a meeting last night, the Council voted to adopt a pledge not to support companies, institutions, or organisations that profit from abusive practices towards people seeking asylum.

Moved by Greens Councillor Irene Doutney (pictured), the successful motion will not impact current contracts, but could cause headaches for companies working in the offshore detention industry when new tenders are released.

Of particular interest will be the implications for Wilson Security, subcontracted by detention centre operator Broadspectrum (formerly known as Transfield) to provide security services in offshore centres. Wilson also provides substantial carparking and security services in Australia and the company has had a number of contracts with the City of Sydney, including an estimated $2.4 million deal to manage the Kings Cross Car Parking Station which is due to be reviewed in 2017.

Doutney told New Matilda that most members of the Council – dominated by Clover Moore’s progressive independents – were appalled by the abuses occurring in detention, and that she expected the motion would make it difficult for the Council to renew contracts with companies like Wilson in the future.

“I just think it’s really important for institutions, particularly councils, to take a stand on these sorts of things,” Doutney said. “People will say ‘it’s not Council business’, but I think anything to do with human rights is Council business. It’s really important to take a stand and, being City of Sydney, maybe other councils will now look favourably on the pledge.”

Doutney said the motion would not have an immediate impact but would put pressure on the Council not to sign contracts with or invest in companies linked to detention in the future. She said the Council already avoids investments in fossil fuels, tobacco, and nuclear.

The City of Sydney’s move comes at the end of a year that has seen Broadspectrum in particular come under pressure for its role in offshore detention, with the No Business in Abuse campaign occurring in tangent to a divestment movement. In August, super fund HESTA announced it was divesting, withdrawing $18 million from the company formerly known as Transfield.

The No Business in Abuse campaign said Leichhardt Council and Yarra City Council had also signed on.

“The City of Sydney is one of Australia’s largest councils, and their decision last night provides unstoppable momentum to the NBIA campaign which has expanded to target the clients of Broadspectrum and Wilson, including councils, schools, hospitals and big resources companies,” Shen Narayanasamy, Executive Director of No Business in Abuse and Human Rights Campaign Director at Getup, said in a press release.

Narayanasamy said the Wilson Group currently had over $3 million worth of contracts with the City of Sydney. If the Council holds its resolve, that number is likely to head towards zero in the coming years.

The Wilson Group could not be reached for comment.

     Source from New Matilda: 

https://newmatilda.com/2015/12/15/companies-involved-in-offshore-detention-frozen-out-by-city-of-sydney/

Syria's children - and Syria's people - ARE precious in God's sight

 

Dear Friends,

Like most of you, we are heartbroken by all the news we have seen in recent days as Syrians have been forced to flee their home in search of safety.  What can we say other than our broken old world truly needs our Saviour Jesus?

Today, we have launched a call to our Immigration Minister, urging him to give real and practical assistance to those in need on behalf of all Australians.  In partnership with others working in the asylum seeker and refugee space, we have called on Mr Dutton to both accept an emergency intake of Syrian refugees and to allocate significant financial assistance to the United Nations for their work addressing this global crisis.

We believe that our call echoes the heart of our God, who always hears the cry of the oppressed and who is the author of all peace.

Will you please stand with us, as we call on Mr Dutton and pray that he would have the courage to lead a national response to this tragedy that is marked by compassion, generosity and a profound sense of the value of every single human life?

And would you please take the time to share this email and the petition with those in your world who also have a heart to see God’s justice reign here on earth?

With thanks for your support, as always,

From Kylie, Tim, Justin, Jarrod and all the Common Grace team

Common Grace
http://www.commongrace.org.au/ -=-=-

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Another "NO" added to Tony Abbott's repertoire

Tony Abbott unmoved by Liberal calls for more Syria refugee help #thumbsdown http://t.co/zf9KH92fGA

— Advocacy at St Pauls (@StPaulsVoice) September 5, 2015

Fighting human trafficking

“Fighting human trafficking is not just about law enforcement” – UN rights expert http://t.co/mp5MLshpKq pic.twitter.com/EiVTYvxlVd

— UN Human Rights (@UNrightswire) July 30, 2015

Book launch by Professor Gillian Triggs : THE INTERVENTION - an anthology

Authors of The Intervention: an anthology

Anita Heiss, Rosie Scott, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Patricia Anderson.

Refugee Week in Ballarat - 13 to 21 June - information, posters and publicity linked from here

Refugee Week is being celebrated in Ballarat from 13 to 21 June.
Below is the poster for one of the week's major events.
For more information on what is happening in Ballarat
- and to download posters and programs -
please go here to access information and publicity material
at Events - Refugee Week - 2015 - Ballarat

Whistleblowers? The Australian Govt has legislated so hard people can't draw breath let alone whistle.

 

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC)

The Australian Border Force Bill currently before the Senate carries a mandatory 2 year jail term for Department of Immigration and Border Protection public servants who become whistleblowers.

Why would we need such a law except to cover up human rights abuses by the Australian Government towards refugees.

We are disgusted. How about you?

The ASRC has made rigorous written submissions against this bill to the Senate Committee reviewing it.

You can read the full Bill here: http://www.aph.gov.au/…/Bills_…/Bills_Search_Results/Result…

A GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION - STOP THE FORCED CLOSURE OF ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES IN AUSTRALIA

Cross posted with permission from The Network.

Aboriginal communities in Australia announce

a global call to action.

Rally from Aboriginal Tent Embassy to Parliament House,

Thursday 19 March.

Assemble at Tent Embassy 11.30am 

for a 12.00pm march to Parliament.

12.30 - 2.00pm speakers.

Kimberley Aboriginal communities have declared a GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION to stop the forced closure of Aboriginal communities in Western Australia amidst the growing campaign by State and Federal Governments to withdraw their support and remove Aboriginal people from their traditional homelands.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has whipped up a great amount of fear, anxiety and doubt amongst the already marginalised First Peoples, when he said that: 

“What we can’t do, is endlessly subsidise choices, if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have”.

Editorial Note: Please see this ABC 7.30 Report
for video, transcript, and discussion.

Abbott’s statement was in support of the declarations made by Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, in a press statement released 12 November 2014, suggesting that the State could no longer support 150 Aboriginal Communities, flagging the prospective removal by the end of 2015.

We who live in the remoter areas of Australia do not believe it is a lifestyle choice but an intrinsic fundamental human right to live in our own communities and our own country. We hold significant cultural obligations to our Ancestors to maintain Sovereign ties to our lands. After successive breaches of Human Rights conventions and the forced removal of the Aboriginal Community of Oombulgurri in 2014, we maintain a vote of no confidence in both the incumbent State and Federal Governments in their actions toward Aboriginal people.

On Thursday 19 March 2015, Australians across the Nation are being asked by governments to acknowledge ‘Close the Gap’ Day – but for many of our countrymen the ‘gap’ has been significantly widened, placing increasing pressure and trauma on our people. Starting in the Kimberley at 10am, we will march not for this Government agenda, but instead to show our objection to the threatened proposed closures to Aboriginal communities.

We stand in solidarity with all other regions in Western Australia and South Australia who have the veil of threatened remote community closures hanging over their lives. We understand that the precedent for a National attack by Government toward Aboriginal people living on their homelands, has already been set in the Oombulgurri closure. We ask the national and international community to stand with us in this action, and the subsequent actions that will ensue as we mobilise effective campaigns to secure our cultural right and entitlement.

Canberra media inquiries: 

Amy McQuire: 0487 427 207 

Alice Haines: 0447 097 659

www.sosblakaustralia.com 

www.facebook.com/sosblakaustralia I Twitter: @sosblakaust

Official Hashtags:

#SOSBLAKAUSTRALIA 

#NOconsent #Lifestylechoice

email: blaksoscanberra@gmail.com 

For further information see the website:
www.wgar.wordpress.com

Editors' note
- as well as this, take note of conservative State and Federal Governments
attempts at social control of the mainstream population: Medicare co-payments;
dismissal of the NDIS, treatment of people with disabilities -
particularly those young people who end up in nursing home aged care
because there is no place for them anywhere else;
education policies; cuts to social welfare payments to the elderly and the unemployed.
The question to be asked is why is it that Australian governments are still  unable
to treat Aboriginal people as citizens with equal rights to the goods and services
which other citizens receive.
This is the 21st Century after all - we put people in space -
we have more money awash in Australia than at any time in our history.
But we still can't meet the needs of our original inhabitants
whose land we stole.

NGOs in #Cambodia who get DFAT funding are in an awkward position ...

From the Facebook site: If you don't free the refugees we will

Francesca Agosti

20 February at 19:03

NGOS IN CAMBODIA COMPLICIT IN THE AUSTRALIA-CAMBODIA REFUGEE DEAL

With the collapse of Australia’s oversees aid program into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Australian aid has become much more strongly aligned to the logic of security and in particular, propping up the detention industry. In Cambodia, this means orientating the aid program towards the controversial ‘Australia-Cambodia refugee deal‘ – whereby DFAT will provide the government of Cambodia with $35 mill in exchange for providing Cambodia as a dumping ground for asylum seekers.

This places NGOs in Cambodia who receive funding from DFAT in an awkward position – in that they now receive their funding from the same agency that is helping to secure the Australia-refugee deal.

NGOs working in the field of governance/corruption/gender are now complicit in Australia’s refugee/human trafficking operations – providing DFAT with an alibi in the form of small highly visible projects that give the impression that Australian aid is fighting human rights abuses, ‘corruption’ and ‘gender inequality’.

In an aid dependent country such as Cambodia, most NGOs have become complacent with the donor funding structure, putting their own short term survival ahead of meaningful political work. For instance NGOs have been eerily silent on the Cambodian government hunting down highland Vietnamese asylum seekers with dogs in the northeastern province of Ratanakiri – an action that appeared to receive tacit support from the Australian embassy.

NGOs such as The Asia Foundation, Transparency International, International Bridges to Justice, Legal Aid Cambodia, Social Services Cambodia, CARE, Cambodia Children’s Fund and Save the Children, now need to urgently ween themselves off Australian aid.

Source: https://xborderoperationalmatters.wordpress.com/…/ngos-in-…/

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All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights

Today @RACSaustralia is celebrating #HumanRightsDay http://t.co/8LoGGD7kq1 #AsylumSeekers #AusPol pic.twitter.com/O5PecV6Wk7
— RACS (@RACSaustralia) December 10, 2014

What is Australia - What are Australians - doing this Human Rights Day? It is plain what Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott are not doing!

Free the Refugees!  Respect the Asylum Seekers! Honour the foreigners!

#Rights 365: Today is Human Rights Day

Human Rights In A Box: an anti-bullying education project from Youth for Human Rights Australia

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY - 10 DECEMBER 2014 - JOIN THE CAMPAIGN: Human Rights 365

Human rights 365

On 10 December every year, Human Rights Day commemorates the date on which the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaiming its principles as the “common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.”

This year’s slogan, Human Rights 365, encompasses the idea that every day is Human Rights Day. It celebrates the fundamental proposition in the Universal Declaration that each one of us, everywhere, at all times is entitled to the full range of human rights, that human rights belong equally to each of us and bind us together as a global community with the same ideals and values.

In 2014 the message from Human Rights 365 is unequivocal: the UN Human Rights Office stands by its mandate and stands with the millions of men and women globally, who risk their all for human rights. 

Make your voice heard now via our campaign on Vine: explain why Human Rights matter 365.

It is as important now, as it has been at any time in recent years to declare your membership of and support for the international human rights community. 

On any scale, 2014 will be remembered as a year of daunting human rights challenges. In places where only recently there had been progress in achieving human rights, there has now been retreat. Nonetheless, there have been, significant, ongoing, global advances in achieving our human rights.

Support for the Declaration continues to grow: this year the Convention against Torture reached its 30th year, the Convention on the Rights of the Child is 25. In 2015, the very first of the international agreements giving effect to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination marks its half century. 

As a global community we all share a day when those milestones can be acknowledged and we can take stock of the challenges ahead: Human Rights Day on 10 December. It offers all of us the opportunity to declare our commitment to the principles and standards developed over the more than six decades since the the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted.

Human Rights 365 on Vine

In six seconds tell us why human rights matter 365 and post it on Vine. Tag your Vine with #rights365 and we will collect them all in our Storify and tell the story on 10 December.

Human Rights 365 on social media

We want all of you to mobilize in support of our right to enjoy every day as a human rights day. Join our Thunderclap: support human rights 365.

Indefinitely, inhumane, and in defiance - we are imprisoning children. Release them! WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS

currently detained indefinitely 

by the Australian government.

_________

Indefinitely.

Inhumanely,

And in defiance of international human rights conventions.

In your name.

Your help will sustain their hope.

You are free to choose how you will stand
against this travesty of justice and morality.

Please do so.

We Are Better Than This
Please go the the We Are Better Than This Website

United Nations : women, peace and security.

In a unanimously adopted Presidential Statement this morning ahead of a day-long debate on “women, peace and security,” the Security Council reaffirmed the need to dismantle the “persistent barriers” facing gender equality, calling on Member States to embrace a “dedicated commitment to women's empowerment, participation, and human rights” and ensure their full and equal participation in peace and security issues.

Held annually, the Council's open debate provides an opportunity for the wider UN membership to reflect on the progress made, and accelerate action on implementation of the Security Council resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, which requires parties in a conflict to respect women's rights and support their participation in peace negotiations and in post-conflict reconstruction.

In a message to the 15-member body delivered by Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon thanked the Council for its “consistent focus” on women and peace and security issues, noting that such debate has enabled the international community “to move beyond viewing women as only victims of conflict to seeing them as agents of peace and progress.”

However, he expressed concern that “unprecedented levels of displacement” and the “immense human and financial cost of conflict” is testing global commitments to addressing the needs of women and girls around the world while also hindering their participation in conflict prevention, resolution and peacebuilding initiatives.

To read more please go here

Introducing Fighting Father Dave from Dulwich Hill ...

It was great to see Father Dave on Compass this week.  I've known of Father Dave on and off for many years - but the Compass program presented a lot of stuff I didn't know. It helped me to have a more rounded picture of him.  

And I like his honesty.  Father Dave has been working in Dulwich Hill for a long time and seen it change from a poor and troubled working class inner Sydney suburb to inner city trendiness.  He has worked to bring about change with families and young people - but he says the real change is due to rising real estate prices! 

Sanitation - not just a health issue but an 'inequality for women' issue ... in India and in Australia. #Blogaction14, #Inequality, #Oct16, #Ballarat

We, in supposedly comfortable Australia,

often forget that what we regard as "the basics" 

are not always available everywhere.

Sanitation is not only a matter of health and hygiene,

it is also a women's issue of great importance.

Some women on this planet, because of culture and poverty,

 can only "go"under cover of darkness to a communal dump.

Sanitation is an issue in Australia too -

for many Aboriginal communities in remote Australia.

Please update your knowledge at the links below.

Please consider.

Water and sanitation are human rights for women and girls

Women, safe water and sanitation

...and the situation in Australia?

Sanitation in Australian Aboriginal communities

 Indigenous Plumbing & Sanitation Foundation

This post is being cross posted at The Network for Blog Action Day 2014

Cambodia? Unbelievable! - from the #AnglicanParishofGosford