Consultation news

Wagga Wagga roundtable a whopper

The National Human Rights Consultation Committee held a Community Roundtable in Wagga Wagga yesterday, 18 February. A surge of registrations the day before the event saw us reach capacity at a bumper crowd of around 40 people. There was keen interest by a large number of others who couldn’t attend the 1pm session, so the Committee is considering coming back to Wagga Wagga. Let us know if you missed out too. The Committee doesn’t want to miss out on your important views.

The session started with Frank Brennan acknowledging the traditional owners of the land, the Wiradjuri people. The Committee, represented by Frank Brennan and Mary Kostakidis, got the discussions started. Unfortunately, due to illness, Mick Palmer and Tammy Williams were unable to attend but sent their sincere apologies.

The opportunity to discuss the protection and promotion of human rights and responsibilities was eagerly taken up by the people of Wagga Wagga. After an initial open group discussion, the hot topics really got going when we broke up into individual groups.

We moved between groups and participated in discussions. We have taken note of the interesting comments and suggestions made around the three key questions:

  • Which human rights and responsibilities are important to you?
  • Are these rights and responsibilities adequately protected now?
  • How could rights and responsibilities be further protected in the future?

Some of the key ideas people wanted to discuss were:

  • Developing a culture of respect
  • Respect of individual rights in the justice system
  • Rights of the child and responsibility of the parents
  • Universal access to health care
  • Open, transparent and accessible government
  • Right to privacy in rural health care
  • Right to life
  • Disparity of community resources between rural and city locations
  • Lack of adequate settlement services for migrants in rural areas

As you can see, there were certainly some interesting discussions to be had during our visit to Wagga Wagga. We are really looking forward to hitting Penrith this Friday. Dubbo, Bourke and Sydney are the next cabs off the rank so register now on the Calendar of events page to ensure your place at those Community Roundtables.

Until next time,

Frank Brennan and Mary Kostakidis