Endorsing Sri Lanka to host the next (2013) conference was a slap in the face for those calling for an independent international investigation into the 2009 massacre in northern Sri Lanka and an end to the ongoing persecution of the Tamils. To his credit, Canadian PM Stephen Harper had said he would boycott the next CHOGM if it was held in Sri Lanka.

Proposals from the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) to strengthen CHOGM’s ability to deal with human rights violations were either deferred or rejected. A key EPG recommendation had been for a new commissioner on the rule of law, democracy and human rights who would have a mandate to speak out. This was knocked on the head by some southern African and south Asian nations.

The EPG pointed out the short-comings of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), made up of foreign ministers, which has been weak in addressing human rights violations. While Commonwealth members (eg. Fiji) have been suspended after there’s been a military coup CMAG has failed to implement the 1991 Harare Declaration and condemn “severe and persistent violations of democracy and human rights.”

There is no better illustration of this than the Commonwealth’s failure to act over the atrocious human rights situation in Sri Lanka and the complete denial of accountability by the Rajapakse government for the 2009 genocide. A Canadian EPG member, Senator Hugh Segal, said the failure over Sri Lanka “speaks to the thesis of [Commonwealth] irrelevance.” Our government seems to have kept a low profile at this CHOGM, which is a pity when so much is at stake, including the very future of the Commonwealth.

I was also delighted because the appointment represented the fulfilment of a lot of my work in Parliament this term. My Human Rights (Disability Commissioner) Amendment Bill to establish the position of Disability Commissioner was due to be debated in Parliament when the Government announced they would adopt my proposal and create the position.

In recognition of the importance of appointing someone to the post as soon as possible, Paul was appointed on a fixed term contract before the law was officially changed to create his position. The Government has now introduced legislation to establish the permanent position.

Or has it?

It won’t be debated until the next term of Parliament, because the House has now risen for the year, but the Human Rights Amendment Bill has been tabled in the House so we can examine and prepare for it in the next term.

At first glance, I’m surprised and a little perturbed to find that the Bill does much more than just establish the position of Disability Commissioner. The Government seems to have taken the need for legislation to establish the role of Disability Commissioner as an opportunity to review and the whole Human Rights Commission (HRC).

The Bill would make quite major changes to the structure of the HRC and the roles of the Commissioners. Instead of having dedicated Race Relations, Equal Opportunity, and Disability Commissioners, they will all be Human Rights Commissioners, with particular “portfolio” responsibility for different areas. While the Bill stipulates that there must be a Commissioner appointed to lead the work in the three priority areas of Race Relations, Equal Opportunities, and Disability Issues, it actually allows for one Commissioner to lead work in more than one of these “priority areas”. So there would be no guarantee that the Commissioner working on Disability Issues would actually be doing so full time.

It’s even possible that Commissioners wouldn’t be appointed because of their specialist knowledge in these areas, but appointed as Human Rights Commissioners first, and then assigned to one of these portfolios. If that were the case that would run completely counter to the strong push from the disability sector that the Disability Commissioner should have lived experience of disability and a proven track record as a disability advocate.

Obviously this rings some pretty loud alarm bells for me! Other parts of the legislation – like those more clearly spelling out the HRC’s role in promoting and monitoring New Zealand’s international human rights record – might be perfectly reasonable and necessary changes to enable the HRC to operate efficiently. I intend to talk to people within the Human Rights and Disability sectors to find out what they think over the coming weeks and months.

What concerns me is that these changes haven’t been sold by the Government as a major review of the HRC, even though that is what they are. The press releases from both the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Disability Issues following the tabling of the legislation merrily celebrated the creation of the new Commissioner with responsibility for Disability Issues, mentioning the wider changes almost as an aside. Both also emphasised that the Bill would enable a full time Disability Rights Commissioner, despite the fact that as drafted, it does not guarantee that the Commissioner wouldn’t have another portfolio as well.

This is at best careless and at worst misleading. If we are going to have a wholesale review of the HRC, then let’s have it out in the open! And if we’re going to establish the full time position of Disability Commissioner, then let’s do that, not do something like that that doesn’t quite meet the description.

I will be following the development of this legislation in the next term of Parliament very carefully, and suggest anyone with an interest in Human Rights, Race Relations, Equal Opportunities, and Disability Issues does the same!

He admitted that 15 of them had been sent to facilities run by the Afghan intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), which comes in for the harshest criticism in this month’s UN report on the Afghan government’s treatment of “conflict-related” detainees. When interviewed by the UN half of those detained by the NDS said they had been tortured, most of them badly tortured. Mapp told the NZ Listener that “it appears” most of those 15 Afghans were sent to the NDS Kabul facility 17/40, which the UN says has torture allegations against it. The UN is following up these allegations.

Some of these 15 prisoners would likely have been transferred from 17/40 facility to most notorious NDS Kabul prison Department 90/124, which the UN says engages in systematic torture, including shock treatment and sexual assault. Department 90/124 specialises in interrogating “high value” suspects generally captures by special forces (including international forces)  –  and it seems the prime special forces unit operating in Kabul, targeting high value suspects, is the SAS/CRU unit.

There don’t appear to be any procedures to stop such transfers of prisoners. All our SAS does is note the names of the SAS/CRU prisoners and where they are first placed, and passes this information on to the NATO/ISAF office – which doesn’t have a system to follow up individual prisoners.

Most of the 58 prisoners taken by the SAS/CRU are presumably first detained in an Afghan National Police (ANP) facility. However, the UN reports significant transfer of prisoners between the ANP and the NDS, so several of these ANP prisoners probably ended up being tortured in the NDS 90/124 prison. If they had stayed in ANP custody they would have been better off – only 33 percent of ANP prisoners are tortured, according to the UN survey.

It is hard to see how our government can avoid contravening the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture by allowing our SAS to continue to operate in this environment.

What I found was a rather more interesting (and also more demanding!) event, the brainchild of an enterprising group of AUT students who donated their time and skills to organising the morning as part of their communications degrees.

Posing as a ‘star’ for the morning, alongside Blair Strang, a real star,  I was invited to compete to see what distance I could clock up on an exercycle in blocks of three minutes.  I don’t find an MP’s lifestyle to be especially conducive to maintaining fitness, but  managed to produce at least some reasonable results, although Blair did manage to take the lead (by a modest margin ) in our final ‘contest‘.

The point of all the silliness and panting was to raise awareness of what Habitat does in the community, and of their plan to host a sponsored ‘Bike and Build’ cycle ride from  Auckland to Wellington next year, with proceeds to go toward completing a building project in Wellington.

So if you are keen to ride all or part of the way between our two largest North Island cities, for a good cause, keep an eye on the Habitat website for details.  You have plenty of time to get fit for it if you start soon!

To add insult to injury, the legislation will be retrospective, to make legal the behavior of the Police over recent times in conducting covert video surveillance without any warranted power to do so.

Even worse, the Police have been consciously breaking the law, as Chief Justice Sian Elias pointed out in her judgement in the Operation 8 case, which saw charges against 13 defendants dismissed. She said: “In circumstances where the police officer in charge of the inquiry knew that there was no authority for such filmed surveillance, the deliberate unlawfulness of the police conduct in the covert filming, maintained over many entries and over a period of some 10 months, is destructive of an effective and credible system of justice.”

The Police also knew from the 2007 Law Commission report on Search and Surveillance Powers, and three years of parliamentary proceedings on the Search and Surveillance Bill, that they had no legal authority to conduct covert video surveillance.

In attempting to justify urgency and retrospectivity, the Prime Minister has referred to problems with 40 pending trials and 50 Police operations. However, it is well established that for serious crimes the Evidence Act allows for some illegally obtained material to be used, as has occurred in the Operation 8 case, where the Supreme Court has allowed used of the video evidence against the four remaining defendants, charged with being members of an organised criminal group.

This rush to change the law in a week contrasts with the considered approach of the Justice and Electoral Select Committee, which spent two years fine-tuning surveillance powers in the Search and Surveillance Bill which has, for the last year, been awaiting its Second Reading in Parliament.

Covert video surveillance was a major topic of debate in the Committee and the Green Party’s minority report (which I wrote) argued that we should not go so far as to allow covert surveillance involving trespass, for example putting covert camera in someone’s living room. We were also concerned that under the Bill surveillance warrant powers will be granted to a whole range of government departments from Internal Affairs, Conservation and Commerce to the Food Safety Authority.

To now deal with such complex and controversial matters in a new bill, in urgency, is an affront to the parliamentary process.

We have yet to see the actual Bill, but from what we have heard about it so far it is not something the Green Party could support.

Unfortunately, the resultant report, released this month, is far from adequate. It supports the Israeli view that the aid flotilla should never had taken place – calling it ‘reckless’ – and justifies the Israeli raid, with a qualification that the way the boarding took place was “excessive and unreasonable”. Israel is not even asked to apologise, only to issue “an appropriate statement of regret”.

Amazingly the Panel decided that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza was legal and only about stopping gun runners. It conveniently ignored evidence that the blockade is primarily economic, aimed at collectively punishing the people of Gaza for continuing to support Hamas. Turkey disagrees with this finding and is going to the International Court of Justice to get a judgement on the legal status of the blockade.

The Panel report is a big step backwards from an earlier UN report, by the Human Rights Council, which found the Israeli commando action “betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality” and those responsible could be prosecuted. It also declared the blockade unlawful. Unlike the Palmer Panel, which simply relied on existing documentation, the HRC investigating body actually interviewed more than 100 witnesses to the raid.

This BBC film, wherever it is shown, prompts calls for an independent international inquiry into what are clearly war crimes – which is why the Sri Lankan government hates it. Pro-government Sri Lankans, in tandem with their High Commission, did everything they could to stop the film being shown in the New Zealand Parliament. But they were not successful.

The screening was hosted by three Members of Parliament, Maryan Street from Labour, Jackie Blue from National and myself from the Green Party and attended by other MPs, including Hone Harawira, leader of the Mana Party.

The film is now being shown around the country by community groups. See it if it comes your way. It’s a film you need to see, even if you don’t “enjoy” it.

Part of the spend is committed to yet another monument to failure and lack of imagination or leadership – the proposed men’s prison at Wiri, which is budgeted at around $370 million. That figure represents about eleven year’s worth of our current annual spend on treating drug and alcohol problems for prison inmates.  This is despite the figures from Corrections indicating that alcohol and/or drugs are involved in around 80% of  crimes committed.

Reinvesting that money into community based drug, alcohol and mental health treatment programmes; on literacy and basic education; on work creation and on accommodation to assist  inmates to make the transition into society post-release, would all give a vastly better ‘bang for the buck’ and over time make our communities safer and more secure.

All the international research points that way, and it is a shame that this government and indeed the last one allowed themselves to be locked into the frame of ‘tough on crime’ rather than into a rational and compassionate approach to removing this blot on our national wellbeing.

On Wednesday, Wellington’s Kachin community arrived in Parliament grounds to protest the increasing violence happening in their home province. Kachin state is the Northern most state in Burma, neighbouring China.

The Kachin community told me about the breakdown, last month, of a 17 year ceasefire between the Burmese government and Kachin people. 20,000 people have fled as refugees to the Chinese border, others have gone into the jungles, and none of them have sufficient medical care or provisions.

One woman told me of her fear for her parents and siblings who she had not heard from. According to Wellington’s Kachin community, there are many missing families, particularly in the villages close to an army base.

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is urging President Thein Sein to begin immediate peace talks. There is little  international news coverage on the increasingly violent situation in Burma. We need to offer support, not only to the pro-democracy movement headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, but also to the ethnic groups targeted currently targeted by the Burmese government.

The Western intervention was contrary to the UN Charter and based on three lies; that there was going to be a massacre of civilians; that the Arab League supported intervention; and that there was only going to be a ‘no-fly zone’ over Libya. The Arab League had met, but only eleven of the member countries turned up, giving the six Gulf states (all dictatorships) a majority for their Saudi-inspired pro-intervention motion. The “no-fly-zone” was quickly forgotten as NATO planes targeted any government facility, military or  non-military, and tried to assassinate Gaddafi and his associates. It also became clear that most members of the Security Council disagreed with the way the operation was being implemented, and that there was little support from the rest of the world.

The African Union did not accept Gaddafi had intended to massacre civilians and it attacked the NATO bombing as an dangerous intervention in an African civil war. At the Security Council, the African Union spokesperson, Dr Ruahakana Rugunda, said NATO was undermining AU efforts to negotiate a solution by demanding that Gaddafi go before any dialogue began.

It now looks as if some Western governments are softening their position, with talk about a negotiated transition to a post-Gaddafi government. One problem is that NATO has endorsed its favourites in the National Transitional Council which are not trusted by several of the armed rebel groups.

After the debacle in Libya it is no wonder the Syrian democrats are not calling for military intervention. They are confident they can win by themselves, with the moral support of the international community.

We’ve seen great bravery from ordinary Syrians. Despite a death toll now reaching around 1600, protest numbers continue to rise. After last Friday’s prayers, hundreds of thousands once again poured into the streets – including in Damascus. The Assad regime is now on the back foot. We have to do our bit to help. The Auckland Syrian community has been active – I spoke at a big meeting they hosted on July 3. But unfortunately our government is not listening, with Foreign Minister Murray McCully  barely mentioning Syria these past few months.

She is now out of house detention, but the regime closely monitors her movements. On Wednesday she begins a tour around the country, to further test the limits of her freedom. It is a risky enterprise. When she last went on such a tour, in 2003, pro-regime thugs assaulted her convoy and killed around a hundred of her followers.

The regime is under more pressure now. The democratic upsurge in the Middle East has heartened Aung San Suu Kyi – and she has been very supportive of it.

She has long advocated using whatever little freedom she or her people have – and she challenges us in the international community to use whatever freedom we have to support their freedom struggle.

Aung San Suu Kyi continues to be an inspirational figures to the world-wide movement for democracy.

The “international community” should get moving now, because the Sri Lankan government has already dismissed the report out of hand. It is embarrassed that the Panel blames the Sri Lankan army for most of the “tens of thousands” of deaths in the last months of the war.  The Sri Lankan army encouraged Tamil civilians to move into “no-fire zones” and then shelled and bombed them. The Panel also condemns the government for shelling hospitals, blocking humanitarian assistance, and violating the rights of Internally Displaced Persons, LTTE cadres, the media, and critics of government policy. The Tamil Tigers were also condemned for preventing civilians from escaping the conflict zone, and suicide attacks which killed civilians.

Getting a full international investigation won’t be easy, because countries like China will try to block any further UN action. The European Parliament’s compromise resolution makes some good points but essentially leaves it up to the Sri Lankan government to investigate further and implement the Panel’s recommendations.

However, we can’t afford to let the matter lie. As UN High Commissioner for Human Rights  Navi Pillay said “The way this conflict was conducted, under the guise of fighting terrorism, challenged the very foundations of the rules of war and cost the lives of tens of thousands of civilians.”

These seven families represent thousands of others around the country in the same position. Their case has been upheld by the Human Rights Review Tribunal and the High Court, but the Ministry of Health has now appealed that decision to the Court of Appeal.

It is my strong belief that disabled people have the right to choose to be cared for by family members, and that if they so choose, those family members have the right to be paid fairly for this work. The Courts have so far agreed, yet justice keeps being denied for these families.

In March, I held a forum in Parliament for the families to discuss the case, which was very successful. Last month I revealed that the taxpayer has so far footed a $1.2m legal bill for the Ministry to keep appealing the case through the courts.

This is a colossal waste of taxpayer funds, and continues to delay – and therefore deny – justice to the thousands of families affected.

The Ministry of Health claims that it has to appeal the decisions because it would cost the Government up to $600m to start paying family carers what they are entitled to.

This claim is frankly misleading. Independent economist Brian Easton gave evidence during the hearings that the fiscal costs were more likely to be much lower – between $17 and $32m. Brian Easton’s analysis is available online here and here, and is well worth a read.

Meanwhile, more cases of families affected are coming to light. Check out this story from TVNZ’s Marae Investigates programme (relevant story is Chapter 3 of the video). Dr Huhana Hickey is a leading disability rights lawyer, who also happens to have MS. She has individualised funding and is able to pay her son Joseph to care for her for 28 hours per week, but in order to receive this funding he is not allowed to live with her, or care for her during the weekends. Yet someone whose disability is caused by an accident can pay a fulltime family carer under ACC. This hardly seems fair.

Dr Hickey reckons this policy breaches both the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and should be referred to a UN Special Rapporteur. What do you think?

It was supported by the Human Rights Commission and the Carers Alliance and a number of people from the disability activist sector also attended. Three families who are plaintiffs against the Government spoke about their situation. Cliff Robinson has been caring for his two intellectually disabled family members for forty years; Lynda’s Stoneham is fighting for her adult daughter Kelly to be able to live with her because that is what Kelly wants. Gill Bransgrove and her adult daughter Jesse Raine who needs 24 hour medical support are overwhelmed by a lifelong fight for Jesse’s right to pay her mother, a registered nurse, to care for her at home

These families won their case for payment as carers before the Human Rights Tribunal and the High Court but the Ministry of Health are still planning to appeal further.

The issue has complexities and is controversial in the disability communities. People ask valid questions like “how to sack Mum or dad if it’s not working for you?” or “won’t everyone helping family members expect to be paid?” Everyone I have spoken with agrees there must be independent advocacy for the person at the heart of the matter, and that auditing all carers including family members is vital. Some worry about the effect on families of an economic relationships, but this is hardly a new problem. Many families employ family members in business and many relationships have complex economic dimensions. Safeguards are vital but justice demands that family members who are carers should be paid like other people.

Some people want to live independently from their families, which is their human right. But so too is the right to choose your family to be part of your care team.

The Government quotes all kinds of fiscal and structural reasons why we cannot find a fair and safe way to address this issue. They have lost all the arguments in court. I am calling on them to drop the appeal they say they will lodge on April. We can find more creative ways to address this issue than a blanket “no” which continues the relentless exploitation of these families.

I am thrilled that my Bill contributed to this moment, and pleased that the Government has supported the immediate creation of the position even though the appointment will eventually require a change to the Human Rights Act.

The position will be a 0.8 position until the law is changed but it’s great to see the process is underway. No other Commissioner, even with the best of intentions, can speak for the disability community as a part time job.

This is a small step for the one in five people who experience disability at some time in their lives. I continue to support those who call for a whole Disability Commission, and long-term I hope we will get there. In the meantime, however, having a dedicated Commissioner is a great a start.

If the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the New Zealand Disability Strategy are to be realised in practical terms, we need a champion at national level.

The hard working NGOs in the disability sector and the individuals affected by a disabling society have a long list of changes needed, so the new champion is will have a busy job. I am proud to have played a part in the long campaign to get a champion for disability justice appointed.

Green MP Keith Locke, who has plugged away for years on issues as diverse as human rights, spy agencies, republicanism, immigration, refugees, civil liberties and defence and would be the go- to Opposition man for the media on them all if it wasn’t for the fact he calls or emails them first. He’s the MP that has shown the most energy, and is forever challenging the Government – exactly what an Opposition backbencher should be doing. The Greens will find it hard to fill his shoes when he goes.

Yes, Keith Locke is the Fairfax Media Backbencher of the Year!

Well done, Keith.  You are a champion of honesty, justice, and human rights.  My regret is that you have always been a backbencher, and never a Minister. 

So you have always had to do the hard yards to make our various governments over the years more accountable to those they govern for; or (the way Labour and National seem to see it, from the latest Wikileaks revelations about the duplicity of both those Parties in Government) those they govern over.

If this vile affront to human rights and democratic principles that will strip all sentenced prisoners of the right to vote was not one of Hilary Calvert’s favourite things, then why the hell did she support it?

While I’m flattered, its clear from the list that I do not belong on it. The other nominees are doing real work which changes the world for the better. All I do is mouth off on the internet.

I/S consistently breaks human rights stories that the New Zealand MSM don’t want to touch.   A human rights activist doesn’t have to be someone who puts their life on the line, risking assassination by agents of a foreign (or local) power.  S/he can also be someone who uses the internet to get human rights messages, and the abrogation of human rights by nation states, out there to us.

I don’t really care if I/S wins the award or not. There are many worthy candidates, but I/S  is also a worthy candidate imo.  

Those like I/S who use technology (sorry for cached link, because there appears to be another “denial of service” attack, no doubt instigated by some angry government agency somewhere,  on this one from Wikileaks at the moment, but keep trying) to support human rights and freedom of information do a really great job supporting transparency, accountability, and democracy.

Yesterday I spoke to a gathering of 100 Iraqi Christians who met on the lawn in front of Parliament to mourn those who have been killed. They were particularly upset at the 58 Christians massacred in a Baghdad Catholic church at the beginning of this month. 

There is ongoing persecution of Assyrian Christians who have lived in Iraq since the early Christian period. When the US invaded in 2003 the community numbered around 1 million people, but since then hundreds of thousands have fled the country or been internally displaced. 

Those at the rally yesterday rightly believe our government should be strongly defending the right of Christians to practice their religion freely in Iraq.

The gender pay gap in the public sector is a bad joke.

According to the census, seven government departments have massive gender pay gaps of 24 percent or more; i.e on average they pay their male staff more than 24 percent more than their female staff.

These departments are: the Department of Building and Housing, the State Services Commission, the Crown Law Office, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Defence. Send them an email and let them know what you think of this if you’re so inclined!

One that really shocked me is the Minister’s own Ministry of Women’s Affairs. 82 percent of MWA staff are women but they still pay female staff on average 7.8 percent less than their male staff. At the Ministry of Women’s Affairs! Go figure.

I was also surprised that the Ministry of Education had a 30 percent gender pay gap, given how many teachers are women.

The Ministry of Defence was less surprising, as was the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet – I guess that’s just how John and the team like it.

And out of 35 government departments, only five are led by women.

I asked the Minister if she would support the Agenda for Change outlined at the end of the census, and join a cross party forum to advance women’s progress inside and outside Parliament. The answer was “no” unless the Agenda for Change fitted with her Ministry’s existing priorities.

So my advice to all you wonderful women? Read the Census of Women’s Participation, and don’t just get mad, get even!