AUST: Critique of Human rights record on eve of election
Updated
Prominent Australian human rights advocate and lawyer Julian Burnside has warned that Australia's anti-terrorism and refugee legislation poses a growing threat to democratic freedoms. Mr Burnside has been writing for almost ten years on Australia's refugee policies and anti-terror laws. Now he's brought his arguments together in a new book appealing for change.
Presenter: Karon Snowdon
Speakers: Australian Barrister Julian Burnside. His book, "Watching Brief - Reflections on Human Rights, Law & Justice" is published by Scribe
KARON SNOWDON: Julian Burnside started out and still is a barrister specialising in commercial law, but in recent years he's moved into the area of human rights and works pro bono for refugees in Australia. His latest book "Watching Brief" continues his criticism of Australia's policy of indefinite mandatory detention of asylum seekers. Australia is the only western nation to lock up refugees.
JULIAN BURNSIDE: Our treatment of asylum-seekers in particular is more than just a passing phase. I think it's something which has in an uncomfortable way identified something about the Australian character and that is something which we should not forget.
KARON SNOWDON: How do you mean that?
JULIAN BURNSIDE: Somehow it didn't seem to travel the national conscience that we were jailing innocent people, driving them to self harm or suicide. Now these are things that are really intolerable, if you stand back and look at them.
KARON SNOWDON: Many of the articles have been published before, but in bringing them into one book it reminds readers of the insensitive treatment of asylum-seekers in Australia and the often inhuman conditions they endured in detention centres over the past decade.
JULIAN BURNSIDE: You know if you ask most Australians whether they think human rights and justice and all of that sort of thing actually matter, they'll say 'yes'. But if you scratch the surface, I think you'll find that most Australians think that human rights are important for me and my family and friends and neighbors and so on but not so important for other people that we don't like or that we fear.
KARON SNOWDON: "Watching Brief" also examines the country's new anti terror laws, drawn up in the name of national security and calls for a bill of rights. Julian Burnside says his emphasis is on the rule of law and the sense of justice, much of which he says has been lost due to distorted politics and public complacency.
JULIAN BURNSIDE: So asylum seekers - if they're demonised - their human rights don't matter, or terror suspects if they're demonised their human rights don't matter. Now by adopting this implicit dual standard, we slip into some very dangerous thinking. We've seen that sort of thinking lead to disasters in other places.
KARON SNOWDON: And don't Australians run the risk of being caught up in these rather draconian laws; take for example the anti-terror laws that now are on the books here in Australia with only slight modifications.
JULIAN BURNSIDE: Yeah look at the case of Dr Haneef. There was a bloke who was for a little while made to look like the worst of the worst and then it turns out he's done absolutely nothing wrong. I wonder how many people have thought about what the ASIO powers of incommunicado detention amount to?
KARON SNOWDON: Has it challenged Australia's democracy seriously?
JULIAN BURNSIDE: To the extent that these things delude the rule of law, yes it does challenge our democracy. A striking example of that, are the laws that allow orders to be made for preventative detention and for control orders. Those are both orders that dramatically curtail a person's basic liberties, not because you have committed an offence but because you might.
KARON SNOWDON: What do you think this last decade has done to Australia's international reputation?
JULIAN BURNSIDE: Oh its been very damaging. I know first hand from a very senior, very conservative English QC that English lawyers who learn about what we're doing think we're committing crimes against humanity. Now they're talking metaphorically. I think we are literally committing crimes against humanity.
KARON SNOWDON: Well, you've said so - and you've accused Prime Minister John Howard, his Attorney General Philip Ruddock and various immigration ministers under the coalition, of those crimes against humanity, of lying to the Australian people, of deception, of human rights abuses, very strong words, which I presume you stand by.
JULIAN BURNSIDE: I stand by them absolutely.
KARON SNOWDON: The publication of your book coincides with the Federal election here in Australia, but this issue and the issues that you raise in your book have hardly been mentioned at all, including by the opposition Labor Party which sees it in this election context perhaps as a non-issue. Do you hold any hope or have any confidence that the laws will be changed or policies will be amended if the Labor Party is successful in the election in three weeks' time?
JULIAN BURNSIDE: Well Labor have said that they will abolish the Pacific solution and all credit to them for that because they supported the initial legislation. Whether they will go further and modify mandatory detention in a way that is decent, remains to be seen. Can I say - you said that Labor haven't seen this as an election issue, I suspect that they haven't seen it as something which would gain them votes and that's regrettable.
KARON SNOWDON: And that's one of your points isn't it?
JULIAN BURNSIDE: Yeah.
KARON SNOWDON: In your publication.
JULIAN BURNSIDE: Exactly. The Australian public's indifference to the suffering of people with whom they cannot identify, people they don't quite see as human in the same way that they are human. And that worries me you know and right now you know if you look at a catalogue of the things that have been done by the present government I think you can say that there are some elections - most elections perhaps where we just identify what we want. But there are some elections and I think this is one which identify who we are and I think it is really time for the Australia public to check their own conscience in order to see what we've been doing and whether we can justify that. I suspect the answer is we cannot justify what we've been doing.
