National Human Rights Consultation Submission 

AGWW-7R92LV 

Name: Carol O'Donnell 

Submission Text: 

This submission responds to the three questions in the National
 
Human Rights Consultation Paper below and in related explanatory
 
attachments:
 

 

Q. 1: Which human rights (including corresponding responsibilities) should
 
be protected and promoted.
 

 
A. All United Nations (UN) Conventions and related agreements which have
 
been signed by Australia and its trading partners should be promoted. I
 
have no idea what ‘protected’ means. If ‘protected’ means the law or
 
standard cannot be changed as a result of debate, experience, scientific
 
inquiry or cultural context, there should be no protection.
 

 
Promotion of UN agreements are appropriately prioritized and implemented in
 
the light of the cultural community and related economic context within
 
which any standard is ideally to be applied. Because of its broad
 
development importance and its strong focus on improving the plight of the
 
poor, who are also those who are usually most otherwise disadvantaged, the
 
Declaration of Alma-Ata from the World Health Organization (WHO)
 
International Conference on Primary Health Care in 1978 needs to be
 
promoted urgently. This implementation must be designed to reach the
 
widest possible community. Otherwise the greatest benefits of any
 
expenditure will be expropriated by those professional occupational groups
 
which have vested interests in defining the supposedly disadvantaged in
 
need of their protection and silencing all who challenge them. This
 
problem of professional capture of expenditure, which privileges the
 
wealthy and may ignore the situation and views of the poor, is a great
 
burden for the poor to have to bear and may be a major cause of future
 
conflict (e.g. as in the case of Iran under the Shah.)
 

 
Q. 2: Are human rights currently sufficiently protected and promoted?
 
A. Human rights are not promoted or implemented effectively.
 

 
Q. 3: How could Australia better protect and promote human rights?
 

 
A. The appropriate forward direction is discussed in the response to the
 
National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC) report entitled ‘A
 
healthier future for all Australians’, which is outlined below. The
 
recommended route is also necessary for freer international markets and
 
attaining Millennium Development goals. Many poor women have little or no
 
choice whether they carry a child or not. That choice is largely up to men
 
and they too, may have no contraception. Uncontrolled population growth is
 
therefore a major problem for all those seeking to end poverty and to
 
improve health and sustainable development by freer choice. War and the
 
use of nuclear power remains a key safety concern for every nation,
 
particularly in Iran. The record on Iranian women and children’s health,
 
family planning and related education are all comparatively good for a
 
developing nation. Ideally, Australians should try to collaborate further
 
with Iranians or other willing communities to improve child and community
 
health, through environment protection.
 

 
The discussion paper on the protection of human genetic information by the
 
Australian Law Reform Commission and the National Health and Medical
 
Research Council (2003) concluded ethical inquiry is consistent with
 
scientific inquiry, in that it is centrally concerned with the kind of
 
procedures or discussions that allow all relevant sources of information
 
and viewpoints on a disputed matter to be taken into account in coming to a
 
decision. Ethical judgment, like scientific inquiry, is ideally an ongoing 
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activity for all, since community life is continually developing, along
 
with knowledge and related conceptions of truth. This inclusive approach
 
to ethical judgment requires much greater recognition of the need for
 
informed participation of communities in all service provision. It also
 
requires educational approaches which recognize the subjectivity of all,
 
including of researchers who prefer to think of themselves as above the
 
fray gripping those below.
 

 
The related and attached response to the Productivity Commission (PC 2009)
 
paper entitled ‘Regulation of Director and Executive Remuneration in
 
Australia’ refers to the Australian Treasury paper entitled ‘Improving the
 
Integrity of Prescribed Private Funds (PPFs)’. This suggests clear
 
non-profit investment models which may satisfy all types of investors and
 
be highly competitive if open. A PPF is a trust (which is a pool or stock
 
of assets, as distinct from an institution) to which businesses, families
 
and individuals can make tax deductible donations for the purposes of
 
disbursing funds to a range of deductible gift recipients. A PPF cannot
 
distribute to another PPF or to a public ancillary fund (PAF). The PAF is
 
also a common structure for community and fundraising foundations. Both
 
funds deserve much greater consideration by superannuation fund managers,
 
governments and many others because they appear designed to achieve the
 
economic, social and environmental objectives of the key stakeholders and
 
related stockholders better than the norm.
 

 
This argument is further supported in the attached submission to the
 
Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission Inquiry into a Sustainable
 
Future for Australia.
 
This suggests more regionally and organizationally balanced and scientific
 
methods of operation and assessment to meet regional industry and community
 
goals which are economic, social and environmental. This approach
 
contrasts with many more one-dimensional, narrowly regulation driven,
 
prescriptive and therefore unrealistic modes of operation that laws may
 
require and inspectors scrutinize occasionally. Such practices may occur
 
to the detriment of all those who must suffer them, while the principle
 
secret financial business tries to carry on as usual.
 

 
The attached submissions on how to treat the Trade Practices Act and on
 
taxation are also highly relevant to the direction recommended. A
 
scientific, joined-up government understanding and implementation of human
 
rights is vital. The lawyer necessarily hates this approach as it
 
challenges the self-interested, feudal notion central to the application of
 
laws and legal training that secretive compartmentalisation of concerns
 
which are legally defined and driven is necessary for justice. Justice is
 
naturally also defined by the lawyer. Lawyers hate the common dictionary
 
more than vampires hate the light. They are social menaces who feudally
 
manipulate normal discourse and experience until it is unrecognizable by
 
almost anybody other than another lawyer. Journalists are better because
 
they seek to interest and inform as many people as possible about vitally
 
important concerns. The journalist may seek to be scientific, but the
 
lawyer naturally follows stupid feudal rules. Any view that a lawyer does
 
not act like one is no comfort.
 

 
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this submission and related
 
attachments.
 

 
Yours truly
 
Carol O’Donnell, 

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