The Turnbull government is expected to be criticised for its dismissal of a proposed Indigenous voice to parliament when Australian delegates appear before the United Nations committee on the elimination of racial discrimination next week.
Australia was elected to the UN human rights council last month, a few days before receiving a drubbing from the human rights committee for its “chronic noncompliance” with the committee’s recommendations and its treatment of both asylum seekers in offshore detention and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the justice system.
A joint submission prepared by Indigenous and human rights organisations ahead of the sessions next Thursday says Australia had made no significant progress on reducing racial discrimination since it was last reviewed by the committee in 2010, and that in some areas, such as the push to remove section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, it had gone backwards.
The submission lists prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s rejection of a proposed constitutionally enshrined representative body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, which was recommended by the federally funded Referendum Council following a national consultation process, as a key concern.
It also lists the government’s failure to respond to the proposal of a Makarrata or treaty-making commission; the failed push to toughen citizenship laws by including an English language test and greater ministerial discretion; “unprecedented political attacks” on the Australian Human Rights Commission; and the removal of funding from the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples as failures to protect against racial discrimination.
The National Congress co-chair, Rod Little, travelled to Geneva along with representatives from the Human Rights Law Centre and other organisations this week to brief members of the committee.
“The Australian government’s relationship with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples has been so strained in recent years, it has affected the crisis in our communities,” Little said.
Australia signed the declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples in 2007, but Little said it had yet to fully implement and respect the right to self-determination.
“If it really wants to be taken seriously [on the human rights council] and do what is right, it needs to immediately work with us and stop imposing things on us,” he said.
The Human Rights Law Centre’s director of legal advocacy, Adrianne Walters, said the committee would also arraign the condition of asylum seekers on Manus Island.
Papua New Guinea police moved into the decommissioned Mansu Island detention centre on Thursday, arresting a number of detainees including Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani and demanding the remaining 370 men leave.
“We expect Australia to be rebuked and called on to immediately evacuate the men, women and children on Manus Island and Nauru to safety in Australia,” Walters said.
“We expect calls for Australia to take immediate steps to reduce the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids being locked up and to abandon its racist ‘work for the dole’ program in remote communities. We also anticipate Australia being asked why it still lacks human rights laws to ensure equality for all Australians.”
The attorney general, George Brandis, hosed down a renewed push for a human rights act on Monday, telling the ABC’s Q&A that he opposed a bill of rights for the “deep philosophical reason” that he did not believe rights were conferred by the state.
He said the parliamentary joint committee on human rights, which assesses proposed legislation for human rights concerns, was a better mechanism.
The submission praised the parliamentary joint committee’s work, but said its recommendations were unenforceable and occasionally ignored by government, and in some instances had been delivered after the legislation in question had passed.