Voting is compulsory in Australia, but only possible if you are enrolled to vote.
You don't automatically go on the roll when you turn 18 or acquire citizenship. You have to enrol by filling out a simple form and sending it to the Australian Electoral Commission.
Although a national election is imminent, an estimated 1.4 million […]
Maverick US historian and pacifist Howard Zinn died suddenly in January, aged 87. He was an inspiring, indefatigable human rights activist best known as author of A People's History of the United States. (His endorsement graces the cover of New Internationalist's No-Nonsense Guides.)
When asked in a recent interview, Zinn said he would like to […]
To further the debate over whether Australia should have laws protecting human rights, the Castan Centre is engaging in a spot of myth-busting:
Myth 1: The proposed Human Rights Act would shift decision making to unelected judges who should not have the power to decide what constitutes a breach of human rights.
The reality: Australian […]
I am pleased to report that The No-Nonsense Guide to Human Rights, co-authored by yours truly and my esteemed colleague Prof. Gready, with foreword by Desmond Tutu, is now available in Spanish under the title, Los Derechos Humanos.
Published this year by Intermón Oxfam, Los Derechos Humanos is available online for about €14 from […]
Expatriate Australian journalist John Pilger (right), in accepting the Sydney Peace Prize last week, was very critical of silence and lies in Australian polity and complicit bystanders among the Australian press and public. He calls us from slumber to form a 'Fifth Estate' of citizen monitoring — that eternal vigilance that is the price […]
Gentle reader,
May I share with you two things that have come across my desk this evening which have had a profound impact on me?
One is an 8-minute video by Oxfam about the life of a woman in rural Uganda facing the 'indescribable pain' of climate change.
The second is an article in the science journal […]
Key nuclear states Israel, North Korea, India & Pakistan remain non-signatories to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). What is your government's current position on the treaty and issues under review?
The next review conference will be held at the UN in New York City in May next year. This Japanese call from arms […]
To quote a press release issued today on behalf of those presently involved in this anti-war protest in northern Australia:
Christian Activists enter restricted military area during live-fire exercises
Four nonviolent Christian activists have entered the Shoalwater Bay Training Area this morning to stop the Talisman Saber exercises. Calling themselves 'the Bonhoeffer 4' after Kevin Rudd’s […]
Before dawn on 28 June, Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya (left) was 'pulled from his bed' in the presidential palace and forced into exile in Costa Rica, still in his pyjamas.
That afternoon Roberto Micheletti, of the same party as Zelaya (the PLH), was sworn in for a 7-month term as caretaker President, with elections due on […]
Australia has a human rights defender on a par with Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler for his stance against Nazi Germany, yet William Cooper is little known in Australia today.
Appalled by the vicious carnage of Kristallnacht, the watershed pogrom of November 1938, Aboriginal leader Bill Cooper (right) led a protest walk from his home […]