by Jan Logie
A cliché is an expression or idea that has lost its originality or force through overuse. My supposition is that as this Government continues to introduce legislation that prima facie breach human rights, they are in effect obliging the Green party, Human Rights Commission and a wide range of NGOs to point out these breaches. The problem is the more we do this, the more the significance of human rights, get lost. The more human rights becomes a phrase without force or depth of meaning.
I have noticed a disturbing trend from members of the National party to dismiss human rights. In response to my question to the Minister of Corrections about the rape of transgender prisoners one National Party MP yelled out – “well they shouldn’t have committed the crime.” In response to concerns about breaches of human rights I have also heard several national Party MP’s ask well what about their obligations? In the six months I’ve been in parliament I’ve had responsibility for the Green party response to four bills: the Immigration Amendment Bill, Privacy Information Sharing Bill, Social Security and the Child Support Amendment Bill. All of these bills raise human rights concerns.
Yesterday the U.N Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the body of independent human rights experts released their observations on the state of economic and social rights in New Zealand.
They had a big list of concerns:
- The lack of integration of human rights into our laws and processes; including the fact that International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) have not been fully incorporated into the domestic legal order, the Bill of Rights Act does not include economic and social rights, and the legislative and policy making processes do not allow for a review of the compatibility of draft laws, regulations and policies with the rights enshrined in the ICESCR
- The continued disadvantage by Māori and Pacific communities in relation to economic, social and cultural rights
- The rights of people with disabilities in relation to employment and health services
- The gender pay gap
- The level of youth unemployment
- Worker’s rights
- The level of family and sexual violence
- Bullying in schools
- The shortage of accessible childcare
- The government’s approach to housing and the restriction of eligibility to state housing
- The right to affordable and safe water
- The level of tobacco consumption
- The level of spending on overseas development
- Work testing provision of the welfare reforms and blanket provision of income management measures for young people
As yet the Government hasn’t responded directly to these concerns except the Minister of Social Development responding to my media release regarding the welfare reforms.
The Minister of Social Development gave her assurance that the welfare reforms won’t breach human rights. However the Ministry of Justice noted that these reforms do breach rights but that these breaches were justifiable.
It has been noted that the proposed welfare reforms will breach ICESCR articles 2,3,4,6,9,10,11 and 12 and concerns have been raised by the Human Rights Commission and many others noting breaches to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention of Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
The underlying problem is, as outlined in the first concern listed by the ICESCR committee, our Bill of Rights Act can be fairly easily overridden and doesn’t even include economic, social and Cultural rights.
The Human Rights Commission increasingly seem to be treated as just another commentator rather than the experts and protectors of our rights that they are.
The Green Party believes human rights are fundamental to a safe and sustainable society.
Our policy is to amend human rights legislation, including the Bill of Rights to ensure that government is bound by such legislation.
Develop a set of indicators for sensing the extent of discrimination and the status of human rights.
Ensure our legislation and practices are in accordance with our international obligations.
Develop a coordinated framework for human rights.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Justice & Democracy by Jan Logie on Wed, May 23rd, 2012
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Loading...
You forgot one.
The right to a piece of earth to live on. That is, the right to a piece of land that is fairly priced at about $40,000 – not $200,000. This is one of the most fundamental of all right. It’s the right to not live in stack-and-pack housing developments if you don’t want to.
And then there is the right to have the government out of your child’s development. This is another fundamental that we will never hear advocated by your party.
You see it’s not really about human rights. It’s about how CERTAIN PEOPLE choose to define what our rights even are or should be.
Like or Dislike:
5 
4 (+1)
And who the hell is the UN to tell us what we should do? Are they better than us or something?
Like or Dislike:
6 
6 (0)
Andrew, nation states agree to international arrangments and agreements such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Afterwards compliance is monitored at the international level. Nothing is imposed on us by them, it’s just a form of national standard tesing applied around the world. A form of national performance assessment.
I find it interesting that you object to government guarantee of free compulsory education – part of the UD of HR of 1948 on some basis of parental freedom to have a monopoly on indoctrination.
It is about human rights, ironically you want family freedom from government and yet a guarantee of land at a fixed price for all (from whom) – price measured arbitrarily in some monetary value unit.
All the UD of HR says about such things is in article 17 nand 25.
Article 17
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 25
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Like or Dislike:
3 
1 (+2)
SPC:
The power of indoctrination will correlate to the depth of the abuse. We should focus on child abuse. And yes I do have a problem with tax-payer funded COMPULSORY education.
My point on land is that its price is artificially inflated (well above rural values at the fringes) to force people into stack-and-pack housing. I was keeping it simple – not arbitrary.
And frankly I don’t give a toss about UN standards. Especially when they make references to “indigenous people’s rights”, as though human rights should be based on ancestry (what bullshit!). Human rights definitions should be strictly fundamental. When we get that detailed governments can begin to rationalise too many tentacles getting right into people’s lives.
Like or Dislike:
3 
4 (-1)
You don’t think colonial annexation of the property of indigenous peoples and the alienation of their cultural identity presence in their own homeland was not the primary breach of human rights in the country concerned? Really?
Like or Dislike:
2 
0 (+2)
SPC,
No it is not, if viewed in the context of the times the colonisation occured.
Human rights is a twentieth century concept that was not “on the horizon” back in the colonial times.
So to go back in time and try and “right” colonial wrongs today is futile and akin to “walking backwards into the future”.
No wrongs can be righted and any attempt is but a token gesture to appease a guilt trip.
Dont buy into the guilt trip and the cringe of attempting to right past unrightable wrongs in todays environment disappears.
NZl is being recolonised as we speak but I dont foresee a culture clash in the 23rd century due to “human rights” violations.
Like or Dislike:
1 
1 (0)
We are not our ancestors. The idea that you should inherit your fathers criminal record is an absurdity, and certainly closer to what would constitute a breach of human rights if it is to be based on sane definitions.
Go back in history as far as you want. You will see any culture at any given time periodically engaging in a desperate competitive struggle for food in an area of finite resources. It must have been the human story since the beginning of time.
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2010/04/mad-species_15.html
The earth belongs to all people. It is not man made – it is “god given”. We need to balance population to resources permanently, and get over this ridiculous idea that we should somehow be responsible for the struggles and crimes of other people’s past. Like they say: an eye for eye will leave us all blind.
Like or Dislike:
1 
1 (0)
Gerrit, human rights, as they existed at the time of 1840, were limited to the traditional understanding (and practice) of civil liberties and contract law that applied to the signing parties of the Treaty.
We can read of the understanding of the Americans in their war of independence for example. Ideas derived and from the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights in the UK.
To say that human rights is a 20thC invention is a bit overstated. The abolition against slavery movement and the suffrage movement existed by 1840. The Treaty arose out of a sense that the indigenous people’s had rights that should be respected. These rights existed legally within nations before 1948, and it was on this basis that the Treaty was suggested by the colonial power.
Of course when the settler government chose to betray the Treaty the traditional consequence, war, was expected and the imperial army was called for.
PS Even after 1948 New Zealand governments appropriated Maori land for public works without compensation.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0 (+2)
Andrew, sure you believe that Pakeha “conquered the land” after betraying the Treaty and that the fruit of that crime can be legitimately inherited without consequences or compensation. Bankrupt finance company founders call that the family trust fund, criminals call it their spouses money for investment in new legal business start-up’s. Both are forms of money laundering.
I suppose those involved see it as a form of eugenics where those who get away with it are the ones fit to breed and have a nice lifestyle.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0 (+2)
While my estimation of when “human right” became fashionable was out by 100 years, the concept that we can somehow restore “human rights”, supposedly taken away by our ancestors, today is fancyful.
Events are overtaking any notion off, in NZL at least, restorative treaty claims.
Problem is Moari and Pakeha are being replaced (thank goodness) with immigrants whom dont have any affinity or effection for the “treaty”.
That is the new colonisation taking place, dropping any notion of treaty having any meaning in tomorrows NZL to the dustbin of time.
Like or Dislike:
0 
1 (-1)
“Human rights is a twentieth century concept that was not “on the horizon” back in the colonial times.”
The term ‘human rights’ may be modern, the principle is not. There was huge debate about the colonisation of NZ and the rights and wrongs of it. In Britain, the illegitimacy of colonisation was articulated at least as far back as the time of Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland.
“That is the new colonisation taking place,”
No it isn’t. These are immigrants not colonists – they aren’t here demanding their own government, language and culture be accorded supremacy.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)