PANEL: HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION
Chair: Sev Ozdowski, University of Western Sydney

Vincenzo Andreacchio, South Australian Multicultural Education Committee, Advisory Committee to the Minister for Education
Don McArthur, Amnesty International Australia
Susan Ryan, Human Rights Act for Australia Campaign

Susan Ryan, former Minister for Education talking about why it is so difficult to incorporate HR subject/contents into secondary school curricula and what the Commonwealth government could do to encourage States to have higher profile in HR education.

Don McArthur will talk about NGO's role and involvement with HR education.

D1.S2.Pan1 – Rm4.223

PANEL: HUMAN RIGHTS ACT FOR AUSTRALIA?

Panel Title: Arguing for an Australian Human Rights Act
Chair: Mara Moustafine

Presentation: The Draft Federal Human Rights Act and its Opponents
Spencer Zifcak, Institute of Legal Studies, Australian Catholic University

Presentation: Politics and The New Matilda Human Rights Campaign
Susan Ryan, Human Rights Act for Australia Campaign

Presentation: Agitating for Change, Getting Involved: New State and Federal Human Rights Initiatives
Ed Santow, Gilbert and Tobin Centre for Public Law, University of New South Wales

D1.S3.Pan1 – Rm4.223

PANEL: SHAKY PLACE FOR RIGHTS
Chair: Chongyi Feng

Program Title: Not Right And Not Responsible
Presentation: Not Right and Not Responsible
Penny Crofts, University of Technology Sydney

Abstract: The Criminal Law organizes and expresses conceptions of rights and responsibilities primarily in negative ways, through commands about how one should not behave and what it means to be sufficiently irresponsible to justify attributions of blameworthiness. Contemporary models of criminal culpability tend to focus upon intentional wrongdoing, consistent with the Freudian linking of aggression with wickedness. However, there are other models of wickedness expressed in criminal law. In particular, contemporary criminal law imports ideas about social duty and responsibility to attribute blameworthiness despite an offender lacking the necessary intention to harm.

This paper focuses on the judgments of the NSW Criminal Court of Appeal and the High Court in the case of Lavender [2002][2004]. In order to frighten some children away from a sand mine, Lavender drove a front-end loader at them, resulting in his running over and killing one of the children. Lavender was charged with manslaughter by criminal negligence.

The case of Lavender resulted in the courts exploring the question (with varying degrees of success) of whether or not one can be wicked in the absence of intentional wrongdoing. These questions have also been explored in philosophical analyses proposing models of wickedness as excess or due to an absence of goodness. The models of wickedness expressed in criminal law are one of the ways in which society organises and communicates ideas about responsibility and morality.

Program Title: Social Disorder
Presentation: Social Disorder as a Social good
Jonathan Marshall, University of Technology Sydney

Abstract: There is much talk about how government must be made accountable: there must be no waste or inefficiency, duplication is bad, the number of politicians and effective tiers of government should be reduced. But perhaps redundancy, waste and frictions, provide the time and place to object, to slow things down, or to circumvent rules, thus allowing Civil Society to function? The benefits of disorder may need to be explored, while recognising that the extension of certain kinds of order produces disruptive disorder. "Efficiency" is also often linked with visions of an overarching computerised system which renders everything observable, accountable and recollectable. However, we may need to able to forget and hide in order to be free. Creativity might require some irresponsibility and unaccountability. Similarly, it is frequently claimed that computers extend democracy by levelling hierarchies and increasing communication, thus making the reduction of government possible and necessary. However, are low hierarchies necessarily democratic, do they allow people to manoeuvre safely, or do they potentially further control and orthodoxy? Does increased communication always lead to harmony?

Social and political theory has tended to posit that disorder is a bad thing, a sign of breakdown and impending doom. This paper will argue that Civil Society can only function where it is not completely accountable, where its definitions are vague, and where chaos and disorder allows people to move, play, have conflict and celebrate contradiction. Order and disorder are intertwined in the social field, such that order creates chaos and chaos creates order.

Program title: Participatory Democracy
Presentation: Ready participants - the missing ingredient in the participatory democracy equation
Jane Stratton

Abstract: Discussion and practice intended to promote 'participatory democracy' in Australia often focuses on governmental processes and issues of access (to government).

However, good participatory democracy depends on a citizenry or constituency that is empowered, informed and prepared to participate.

This paper will argue that the practice of promoting participatory democracy in Australia must move beyond shaping governmental practice (process and access) to address the preparedness, motivation and power of the 'governed' to participate.

This paper will map the implications of failing to foster 'ready participants', and also describe possible strategies to develop individual and joint capacity to create a more participatory, dynamic and contested democracy, and the benefits of doing so.

D1.S3.Pan2 – Rm4.234

PANEL: HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA
Chair: James Goodman

Program Title: Human Rights Defenders In China
Presentation: Rights Defence Lawyers and Rights Defence Movement in Contemporary China
Chongyi Feng, University of Technology Sydney

Abstract: Since 2003 a powerful 'rights defence movement' has emerged in China, transforming Chinese peoples' consciousness from that of obedient subjects to autonomous citizens. The movement is not merely "rightful resistance" of the rural poor, but has also become an urban phenomenon facilitated by the growing strength of the middle class and the latest technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones. Thus, the rights defence movement covers very diverse areas, including protests by farmers against excessive taxes, levies and forced seizures of farmland; protests of migrant workers against discrimination and the irrationality of the household registration system; protests by laid-off urban workers against unfair dismissal by their employers; protests by urban and rural home owners against forced eviction by government and developers; protests by priests and practitioners of the Chinese Christian house churches and Falun Gong practitioners against persecution; campaigns by journalists and writers against censorship and harassment; and protests of affected residents against environmental pollution. Lawyers are at the centre of this movement, courageously representing ordinary citizens in their fight against abuses of legal rights by government and business. However, in spite of extensive coverage in the mass media at home and abroad, this movement has so far attracted little scholarly study, both in China, due to its political sensitivity, and abroad, perhaps due to the slow response of Western scholars to a rapidly changing social reality in China. This paper will redress this neglect by examining the rise and political significance of the rights defence movement with a particular focus on the role played by rights defence lawyers in assisting and shaping the movement for democratic and constitutional reform in China.

Program Title: Regulating Religion In Tibet
Presentation: Rule through law: regulating religion in protesting Tibet
Susette Cooke, China Research Centre, University of Technology Sydney

Abstract: The Chinese Government responded to protests in the Tibetan areas of the PRC earlier this year by security lockdown, restricted information access and dissemination, and the issuance of new legal measures to control Tibetan religious institutions and personnel. The state's intensified utilization of law and legal regulation as tools of control over the core cultural institution of Tibetan society demonstrates the law's potential to serve sociocultural restriction rather than protection of human rights. This raises concerns over the evolving framework for exercise of human rights in the world's most populous country, not only for Tibetans but other citizens in the PRC.

Program Title: Environmental Rights In China
Presentation: Environmental Rights In China
Hongyan Gu, University of Sydney

Abstract: China's ailing environment has been a subject of growing international scrutiny. The complexity and staggering scale of its environmental problems defies attempts to understand and model its entirety. However, this is the not the real challenge it brings. The point at issue is whether there exists a fit of the Western conceptual apparatus into the Chinese context. If not, what should be a viable alternative? This paper aims to answer the question from the perspective of environmental rights. Over the past five years, environmental protection in China has been increasingly linked to minsheng or people's wellbeing. The Hu-Wen government has attached great importance to basic environmental rights such as clean water to drink, fresh air to breathe and safe food to eat. However, the Chinese discourse of citizens' rights is different from that prevailing in the Western liberal democracies. Although there have been increased social spaces for civic action on the environment, the conscious depoliticisation of environmental politics has turned green activism into the issues of "governance". Therefore, the government's appeal for citizen participation in environmental protection is to engage individuals in social programs instead of against its authority. The paper concludes with broader political implications of environmental rights to the development course of China.

D2.S1.Pan1 – Rm4.223

PANEL: INCLUSION, EXCLUSION and RELIGION
Chair: Marion Maddox, Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, Macquarie University

Archana Parashar, Macquarie University
Malcolm Voyce, Macquarie University
Denise Meyerson, Macquarie University

Abstract: Multicultural, multifaith societies face numerous challenges, including: - To what extent can and should different religious traditions receive recognition under the law? - To what extent do religious traditions themselves foster inclusive or exclusive attitudes in their members? - How far should religious voices be recognized in the public square? - Should governments rely on religious organizations to provide public services (eg welfare, education, health), and what consequences, intended and unintended, follow? While religious freedom enjoys near-universal acceptance as a basic human right, its practical implementation can raise complicated questions about how competing, fundamental values should be balanced.

D1.S4.Pan2 – Rm4.231

PANEL: SECURE OR THREATENED?
Chair: David Patch

Program Title: Religious Minorities
Presentation: The Rights of Religious Minorities
Samantha Ngui, University of New South Wales

Abstract: Paper Proposal for the Rights stream (R1) by Samantha Ngui (PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, supervisor - Associate Professor Kevin Dunn) The process of establishing a place of worship is highly symbolic. Places of worship are a symbol of the presence, status and identity of a religious group. The responses to places of worship are emblematic of the response to religious groups. When a religious group seeks permission to establish a place of worship they are seeking recognition and respect of a range of rights that they have as a religious collective. These rights include those, which are fundamental to citizenship: the right to be present in and the right to mark, own and use space. Another right being tested is equality of citizenship with other religious groups. In the establishment of places of worship there is considerable difference between the ways in which the state has treated dominant Christian groups seeking to establish Churches and the ways in which a range of religious minorities seeking to establish their places of worship have been treated. This is not just an historical fact but is also a contemporary reality. There is also disparity in the extent to which religious groups gain permission to establish places of worship. My doctoral research found that religious minorities are less likely than dominant religious groups to get applications for places of worship approved. This was identified through an examination of development application records in local government areas in Sydney over a five year period. This raises important questions about whether secularism offers religious minorities a vehicle to advance their citizenship claims. The appropriate frameworks for equality of citizenship should facilitate the recognition of a range of rights, including a tangible right to freedom of worship for religious minorities. Broadly acknowledged and accepted rights like the right to freedom of worship need to have a utility value and be of tangible benefit to citizens, including in their interactions with local government, the media and other institutions. I aim to present an empirical overview and reflect on the rights of religious minorities in multicultural settings.

Program title: Do Rights Help Women?
Presentation: Do Rights Help Women? Some Thoughts from South Africa
Beth Goldblatt

Abstract: As the debate over a Charter of Rights continues in Australia, evaluations of the South African Bill of Rights are being undertaken. Fourteen years after democracy, lawyers and other commentators are looking back at the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court to assess whether rights have led to significant legal and social change. Women's organisations in South Africa hoped that the strong constitutional protections would address some of the deep inequalities facing women. While important judicial statements have been made regarding substantive gender equality and certain benefits have been achieved, in some areas, traditional conservatism towards addressing the plight of women has remained entrenched. Feminist lawyers are currently weighing up the various strategic benefits of law reform and rights-based litigation. The paper will set out some of this discussion and consider its implications for Australia.

D2.S1.Pan1 – Rm4.233

PANEL: STRUGGLES FOR RIGHTS 1
Chair: Maria Chisari

Program Title: Writers And Rights
Presentation: The Right to Write: Human Rights and Exiled Writers
Ruth Skilbeck, University of Technology Sydney

Abstract: According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed sixty years ago in 1948, all members of the human family have an inalienable right to 'freedom of opinion and expression' including freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.' This right is exercised by writers around the world, yet a significant number are persecuted. In this paper the author discusses interviews conducted with an exiled Ivory Coast journalist and an Iranian poet-musician, compelled to flee undemocratic homelands due to their political writing, which put their lives in danger. On arrival in Australia each was held in detention centres for four years. The system of protracted detention remains controversial in view of articles in the UN Declaration in relation to political exiles, and 'the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution'.

The interviewed writers were released following the publication of their writings in PEN anthologies in Australia and Britain, and after lobbying by PEN. With reference to the interviews, the paper will discuss the rights of political exiles and exiled writers in relation to the UN declaration, in light of its stated objectives for the foundation of 'freedom, justice and peace in the world' and the renewed desire for a peaceful and just cosmopolitan civil society in Australia and internationally.

Program Title: West Papua Struggles
Presentation: West Papua: Genocide On Our Doorstep
Carmela Baranowska, University of Melbourne

Abstract: During World War Two Jan Karski, the messenger of the Polish government in exile, collected eyewitness accounts of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto and the extermination camps. His shocking, almost-apocalyptic narratives ultimately fell on the deaf ears of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. The evidence of war crimes and genocide was irrefutable; however, the will to act did not exist. Why do I mention Karski? I also believe that human rights abuses leading to genocide are currently taking place in West Papua. The Indonesian military’s counter insurgency strategy is now firmly based in the cities, towns and hamlets and its enemy is not the traditional guerrilla but prominent members of the community. During the Vietnam War the US military’s Phoenix Program aimed to “neutralise” the opposition by kidnapping and then killing them. This is happening again in West Papua.

This paper will take recent eyewitness testimonies as a starting point to discuss the role of Australian institutions in the continuing genocide – including the academy, the media - and ourselves as individuals. The author is a Walkley award winning filmmaker currently the recipient of a Human Rights Scholarship and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. Her practice-based thesis is called “The Gun and The Mirror Reflections on Repression, Human Rights, Filmmaking: Burma, East Timor and West Papua 1993-2008”.

Program Title: Asylum Seeker Movement
Presentation: Asylum seeker movement and how it affected their view of their country, their government, their friends, their democracy etc
Margot O'Neil

Abstract: Essentially I'm describing the personal experiences of some of the people who became involved in the asylum seeker movement and how it affected their view of their country, their government, their friends, their democracy etc.

D2.S1.Pan2 – Rm4.234

PANEL: WHITE POWER?
Chair: Maria Chisari

Program Title: White People And Power
Presentation: "Only white people can be racist": What does power have to do with prejudice?
Pooja Sawrikar, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales

Abstract: Sociologists have argued that "only white people can be racist...because only white people have social power" (Lewis, 1995). This has significant implications for empowering all groups in society to take responsibility for racism. Therefore, in the field of race relations, terminology is crucial. This theoretical paper unravels the generally accepted meaning of the terms racism, discrimination, non-English speaking background (NESB) and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD). This paper will firstly argue that 'racism' occurs at both an 'individual' and 'institutional' (or group) level. While power differences exist between race groups, using the two levels of racism as a synonymous term is disempowering and it absolves all groups in society from being responsible for their contribution to the entrenchment of racism. Also, this paper will examine the pros and cons of the terms NESB and CALD as descriptors of non-Anglo background citizens in Australia in official research and policy vernacular.

It starts to address some of the issues associated with these terms by offering a new descriptor for this category of people. More broadly, this paper will help clarify the differences between, and consequences of, the most frequently used terms in the field of race relations and help situate the language of 'responsibility' within a language of 'rights'.

Program Title: Post Colonial Resistance and Power
Presentation: Bonafides Ignorance: Post-colonial resistance to relinquishing power and extending rights in Australia
Ingrid Matthews, Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney

Abstract: If the forced separation of children from their Aboriginal families was well-intentioned, what might ill intentions look like? The modern Australian political era has several highlights for Aboriginal rights, such as the 1967 referendum, when goodwill led to meaningful change. Faludi (1992) wrote that women as a group are forced to fight the same battles over and over again (for example, reproductive rights) even when the right has ostensibly been won. Aboriginal human rights gains are similarly undermined. This is explained as a result of post-colonial reluctance to relinquish power, including among people of goodwill. Bona fides ignorance is wheeled out to excuse centuries of policy failures. The evident intention to exploit land, labour and capital - Economics 101, as endorsed by all Australian governments - is carried out without reasonable negotiation with traditional owners; and without articulating the assumption that all profit is a national good. Undue influence and unconscionable conduct, as contract law breaches, are not regularly tested in the context of Aboriginal rights. Yet Aboriginal leaders of the first-contact era did not cede the rights and interests associated with their custodial responsibilities; and poverty and ill-health stem directly from Aboriginal peoples' dispossession from the land, its resources, and each other.

The danger of insisting that damaging practices were founded on good intentions is that we will fail to recognise current and future policies that will further damage Aboriginal communities. Here I conflate two typical questions asked by non-Aboriginal Australians. "What can I do?" (bona fides) and "What's it got to do with me?" (mal fides) are employed to identify the purpose of intentional ignorance: to resist pressures to relinquish power and extend rights.

Program Title: Panicking Over Diversity
Presentation: Panicking over Diversity? The Proposed Islamic School in Camden
Ryan Al-Natour, Centre of Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney

Abstract: In October 2007, a religious charity-based organisation of the Islamic faith submitted a development application to the Camden local council, requesting to build an educational institution. During the eight months that it took for the council to process the application, various community members, media commentators, and political actors expressed hostility towards the application. Implicitly this hostility had targeted notions of diversity in a religious and racial sense, leading to the vilification of Arab and Islamic peoples in Australia. Further, the language of nationalism was a familiar expression in opposing the application, encouraging some stakeholders to shed concern over the presence of Arabic people in Australia, while others called for an end towards Muslim immigration.

These events illustrate a collective anxiety regarding cultural diversity, a 'global' moral panic, where the existence of certain religious and ethnic minorities were (and arguably still are) depicted as a threat towards national well-being. I will analyse this panic in light of the recent shifts in political discourse away from multiculturalism and towards social inclusion. Further, I will investigate how this panic is manifested in the transactions between the local and national.

D2.S4.Pan1 – Rm4.234

Panel: Rights and the Lifeworld
Chair: James Goodman

Program title:  Climate Change And Indigenous Rights
Presentation: Climate as Cosmopolitical Medium of Exchange: from the Yolgnu Weather-man to the Chicago Climate Futures Trader
Jeremy Walker, University of Technology Sydney

Abstract: The paper will explore the vexed global cosmopolitics of climate change adaptation, drawing on recent field research into the Western Arnhem Land Fire Abatement project (WALFA).

Funded for 17 years in a deal with US energy giant Conoco Philips to 'offset' emissions from their new gas-fired power plant in Darwin, traditional owners are creating employment for Yolgnu as rangers on their own land from Bulman to Maningrida. The WALFA project is re-igniting traditional Yolgnu practices of controlled burning, although adding in helicopters, landrovers and state-of-the-art satellite mapping systems. In abeyance in remote Arnhem land as people have become confined to missions and towns, under WALFA cultural burning practices are being revived. As they reduce the intensity and spread of dry season bushfires, they also reduce the amount of CO2 released to the atmosphere. For rangers, a full time wage enables an escape from dependence on changing welfare regimes - of which the intensive income management of the NT Emergency Intervention Act (2007) is only the most recent and all encompassing. WALFA also enables autonomy and the reconstitution of culture 'on country', supporting the aims of the 'outstation movement' among those Arnhemlanders who wish to return to living on country.

The paper will use this case study to identify tensions, conflicts and opportunities where movements for indigenous sovereignty over land intersect with rising demand for 'alternative' energy (natural gas, nuclear, biofuels), with emerging regimes of carbon accounting, and with discourses of corporate social responsibility. It will also consider how modern ecological science unwittingly acts to mediate connections between (what strict modernism might consider to be) two incommensurable and 'magical' practices: traditional Yolgnu weather knowledge and the speculative trade in carbon futures and other financial derivatives.

Program title:  Human Rights Approach To Climate Change
Presentation: A human-rights based approach to climate change for Indigenous people
Emma Partridge, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

Abstract: While increasing attention is now focused on the global challenge of climate change, it is still commonly viewed as an environmental or economic challenge. The social and human rights implications – both of climate change itself, and of the various mitigation and adaption responses proposed – have received less attention.

Recently there have been a number of calls (notably HREOC 2008) to pay greater attention to the social costs of climate change, and in particular the impact of these costs on human rights, including the human rights of Indigenous people.

This paper will consider the link between climate change and human rights, with a particular focus on the implications for the human rights of Australian Indigenous people. The paper will explore what it means to adopt a human rights-based approach to developing policy and legislative responses to climate change, both in a general sense, and with regard to Indigenous people in particular. It will examine how climate change might impact on Indigenous people, and how a rights-based approach might help to mitigate or avoid the negative potential impacts. It will outline a number of strategies for a rights-based approach to tackling climate change. It will also consider the contribution that Indigenous ecological and land management knowledge (or ‘caring for country’ practices), might make in facing the challenges of climate change.

D2.S4.Pan2 – Rm4.233

PANEL: PERFORMING INCLUSION
Chair: Susan McClean

Program Title: Participatory Research
Presentation: Participatory Research Project People's Voices
Margaret Bell, Chain Reaction Foundation

Abstract: "People's Voices" sets out a descriptive social capital framework based on the belief that citizens and their collective endeavours constitute the basic fabric of any society and that in Australia citizens have always acted voluntarily to build the communities of which they are a part. The voices speak about all kinds of exclusion and discover a pattern for social inclusion expressed through engagement leading to cohesion in community and new leadership. The presentation examines: - The tangible dimensions of building engagement and new leadership. - The links between the tangible dimensions. - The underlying conditions for the tangible dimensions to exist. The model will be made available for replication by those who wish to take it up. Copies of People's Voices (1000 voices) drawn from a recent study in Fairfield, Smithfield, Cabramatta will be made available to conference participants.

Program Title: Markets And Missions Performance
Presentation: The premier of a short performance piece: a tale of when markets and social missions collide
Bronwen Dalton, University of Technology Sydney
Jenny Green, University of Technology Sydney
Melissa Edwards, University of Technology Sydney
Marie dela Rama, University of Technology Sydney

Abstract: Many contributors to non-profit related literature have argued that there has been widespread legitimisation of the business model within the non-profit sector (Kenny 2002; Frumkin 2003). The relevant trends include growing reliance on - and pervasiveness of - commercially generated revenues, an increasingly entrepreneurial culture within the non-profit sector, growing involvement of nonprofits with corporate partners, and intensifying competition with for-profit service providers. Positive assessments of nonprofits adopting for-profit managerial techniques and engaging in commercial activity are prominent in a range of literature but in particular found in the social entrepreneurship literature which refers to a broad set of entrepreneurial strategies to address social goals (Boschee 2001; Borgaza & Defourny 2001; Simons 2000; Thompson 2002). In a similar vein, much of the fundraising and resource development literature is focused on resource mobilisation targeting the market sector rather than donors or the state (Reis & Clohesy 2001 and Frumkin's 2003 discussion of this trend ). These positive assessments have been influential with many non-profit executives feeling they must meet expectations that their organisations will be considered to be more disciplined and effective if they appear more business-like (Frumkin 2003). In this paper we argue that much of the appeal of for-profit practice for non-profit managers lies in the perceived novelty of such practices. A view that " as it is new it is therefore worthy of replication." In sum some in the third sector have contracted a case of neophilia. To demonstrate this we look at two trends in the Australian third sector. The first is the expansion of non-profit lead commercial activity in Australia as evidenced in data available through the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) first Non-Profit Institutions Satellite Account 1999-2000 (ABS 2001) and an analysis of local media coverage of other high profile cases. The second trend relates to non-profit executive recruitment practices in Australian and draws on an analysis of 512 recruitment advertisements for managers in non-profit sector community service organisations that appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, the leading newspaper in New South Wales, over a five-year period (2002 to 2006). The analysis finds that values receive little attention in the advertisements, and that a trend towards valuing professional qualifications and industry experience, including experience in the corporate world. We argue that together these trends reflect and affect what is important to the sector in particular that "going commercial" is a desirable end in itself. The paper concludes with a discussion about the true novelty and value of corporate managerial practice for the third sector. In particular we discuss the potential for this trend to generate a value shift within non-profit organisations that may undermine the capacity of nonprofits to realize their social mission. . The paper concludes with a brief case study, presenting a snapshot into recent developments at Greener Pastures Aged Rights and Services under a new management team led by CEO Max the Axe Turnball former Chief Ethics Officer at James Shardie.

Program Title: Having A Say/Responsibility As A Right
Presentation: Having A Say/Responsibility As A Right
Ingrid Hindell

Abstract: This presentation explores strategies for communicating the idea of rights to people with intellectual disabilities. It concentrates on building a sense of individual capacity and autonomy.

D3.S1.Pan1 – Rm4.231

PANEL: RIGHTS AND THE ECONOMY 1
Chair: David Patch

Program title: Responsibility of Financial Centres
Presentation: Responsibility of Financial Centres
Jocelyn Pixley

Abstract: Is it possible to expect financial centres to take responsibility for their promises and fiduciary duties? Karl Polanyi ended his Great Transformation on such hopes that banking would be embedded in social relations, to counteract the opposite economic trend. He was encouraged by Roosevelt's 1930s reforms which placed impersonal checks against the irresponsibility of Wall Street firms. The paper briefly explores a current dilemma. Accountancy firms and credit-rating agencies verify trustworthiness and credit-worthiness of firms, states and products. Yet widespread attempts to predict the future via probability, in recent years, means such impersonal checks on financial firms' risk strategies are compromised. Responsibility became difficult to assign. The former institutional insistence on norms of stewardship, obligations to keep promises and the shame of bankruptcy seem to have vanished. Corporate social responsibility is limited when firms pass on financial risks under the 'fine print' of caveat emptor and ceteris paribus. These rules enable firms to evade responsibility for financial products that they market aggressively.

The paper concludes by asking how to redefine responsibility of banks: Should competition be reduced? And/or uncertainty acknowledged? While transparency, financial literacy and copious information are the currently promoted reforms, such positivist notions evade inevitable uncertainties. In contrast, since banks take the risks and uncertainties in creating credit-money (for a remuneration), they must be responsible for such risk-taking. While preferable to banks' expectations of government bail-outs and penchant for becoming 'too big to fail', what policies might foster responsibility? Can Anglo-American centres or others provide answers?

Program title: Housing as a Human Right
Presentation: The Right to Housing
Alan Morris, University of New South Wales

Abstract: The notion of government supplying affordable housing to the more vulnerable citizens in society is increasingly portrayed as anachronistic. Instead, with some government assistance, people on low income are expected to buy their own home or find accommodation in the private rental market. Access to public housing is generally restricted to marginalised individuals and households with complex needs. The right to adequate and affordable housing is a fundamental human right and should be an attainable goal within an advanced economy. The cost of not fulfilling this goal for the individuals / households concerned and society as a whole is great. This paper sets out the extent of the housing crisis and assesses the costs for individuals and households of not having access to affordable and adequate housing. It also illustrates how having access to decent and affordable housing can be instrumental in transforming individuals' lives.

Program title: Social Inclusion: Migrants And Refugees In Labour Market
Presentation: Social Inclusion: The Experience of Migrants and Refugees in the Australian labour market
Abeselom Nega, Federation of African Communities Council

Abstract: Social inclusion in a multicultural society such as Australia where the system of governance is underpinned by democratic values is about reducing inequalities between the least advantaged groups and communities and the rest of society by closing the disparity and ensuring that support services are targeted at those who need it most. Social inclusion is also about ensuring that citizens have equal access to education, employment, health care, housing and legal services. Many Australians who came to this country under various migration and humanitarian programs and who now call Australia home had been subjected to deliberate social exclusions by undemocratic regimes in many parts of the world. Some had been subjected to severe ill treatment because of their race, gender, religious beliefs and ethnic identity. Social exclusion has affected and still exists to the detriment of many Australians from all walks of life (indigenous people, women, and people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, the very long-term unemployed and the homeless). This paper will look at the experience of migrants and refugees in the Australian labour market from a social inclusion perspective.

The paper will also examine the way in which employment policy has been formulated in Australia over the past thirty years and its impact on Australia's CALD population. A particular focus will be on the flaws of current employment policy and service delivery model in assisting the most disadvantaged in our communities such as refugees and migrants to secure meaningful and sustainable employment. The paper will refer to international trends of social inclusion and employment policy. In this paper I will argue for a more socially inclusive employment policy that is based on "Human Capital Development Approach where the focus is on employability rather than the outdated "work first approach of the current employment (job network) system).

D3.S1.Pan2 – Rm4.233

PANEL: RIGHTS AND THE ECONOMY 2
Chair: Bronwen Dalton

Program title: Work
Presentation: The Right to Work is a Feasible Human Right
Peter Kriesler, University of New South Wales John Neville, University of New South Wales

Abstract: The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is only one of several international agreements signed by Australia which enshrine the right to work. The costs of involuntary unemployment are very high both to the individuals concerned and their families and to society as a whole. Hence, the right to work is one of the most important human rights. Full employment was a primary and immediate aim of Commonwealth Government policy for the first three decades after the Second World War. With the election of the Fraser government there was a change in priorities with more weight given to containing inflation. This together with an increasing emphasis on using monetary policy as the major instrument of short run macroeconomic policy has made unemployment higher than it need be in Australia, even given the inflation rate we have experienced. The emphasis on "fighting inflation first" is defended with the statement that, if inflation is not contained, in the long run the level of unemployment will also rise. This is not supported theoretically by any orthodox school of economics unless the continuing rate of inflation is very high. Nor is there any convincing empirical evidence to support it for inflation rates in the range experienced in Australia in the last 100 years. There is more evidence to support the case that it is the weight given to the interests of the finance industry which has led to the increased priority given to containing inflation.

The paper briefly outlines the changes in the approach to macroeconomic policy that are necessary if unemployment is to be reduced without increasing inflation. It is accepted that in some circumstances the resulting policies may increase the risk of a higher inflation rate, but it is argued that equally the present approach to macroeconomic policy increases the risk of increasing unemployment and actually has done so in the past thirty years. The arguments used for fighting inflation first are symmetrical and can be applied equally well to support fighting unemployment first.

Program title: Unemployment
Presentation: Removing unemployment from the social domination toolbox
Victor Quirk

Abstract: Historical examples of resistance to the Right to Work (the use of the state as employer of last resort to provide work for those otherwise unable to obtain it), reflect the desire of employers to preserve their strategic domination of society as the gatekeepers to economic security and social inclusion. Suppressing public sector employment enables private employers to exact a higher toll (more work less pay) from those they deign to employ, because it closes off a significant means of by-passing the escape route they control out of poverty and unemployment. Modern advocates of Right to Work / Job Guarantee / ELR approaches need to consider the perceived threat of this concept to those at the commanding heights of economic and political power to understand the deafening silence their empirically grounded research attracts from the broader policy making community.

The Job Guarantee and similar RTW strategies are consistent with other marginalised social policy objectives that threaten to significantly dilute social domination / subordination as the motif of social organisation. Progressive social policy advocates may benefit from recent studies in political psychology that examine what drives the propensity for social domination to deal with resistance to universal approaches to socio-economic security.

Program title: Human Rights and Development
Presentation: Human Rights and Development
Michael Johnson, School of Social Science and International Studies UNSW

Abstract: The focus in the analysis of the pre-requisites for development to occur in low income countries has historically focused on issues such as the capital shortage; the lack of markets or deficits in skills and technology. Discussion of rights as far as it occurred, focussed on the need for particular rights, like the extension of property rights, or the extension of the legal framework in which such rights are traded. In recent times there has been a broadening and deepening of the notion of rights to cover a wide range of political, social and economic human rights, including the right to development itself.

This paper traces the emergence of these human rights concerns and the legal and other institutional measures taken to address them. Developments that have included the emergence of a claim to the right to development itself, which have in turn become linked to the emergence of new development targets like Millenium Development Goals. A development that has introduced new tensions between traditional development thinking and new rights based practice that is not restricted to the broad goals of human development. Tensions in relation to the realisation of human rights goals that are also being felt in the communities and development organisations that are adopting human rights values and principles to guide their operations. Changes that are leading to emergence of new very different development priorities, principles and practices the effects of which are still not fully apparent.

D3.S2.Pan1 – Rm4.236

PANEL: THE RIGHT TO MOVE
Chair: Stephen Couling

Program: Melbourne - A City for People of All Abilities
Presentation: Melbourne - A City for People of All Abilities - Working to Ensure Human Rights, Interconnected Relations and Active Citizenship
Vickie Feretopoulos, Senior Social Planner Access and Inclusion, Melbourne City Council

Abstract: The City of Melbourne has been a leader in disability and access planning since 1997 when it developed its first Disability Action Plan. As one of the first Local Government Authorities to develop such a Plan, Melbourne has continued to work with the community to enhance access and inclusion for all who live, work, study or visit the City.

Our Philosophy: In 2005 following community consultation, Council endorsed its third Disability Action Plan. Developed in collaboration with the community and Council's active and committed Disability Advisory Comm ittee this Plan has been based on the human rights premise that although a disability may limit specific capacity or ability, it is the inequity of access and participation opportunities with society that results in the exclusion of people with disabilities. People with disabilities have consistently been denied the right to fully participate in society as free and equal members. Local Government must play a key role in ensuring the rights of all people to equity of access in all facets of life.

Working Toward a Culture of Inclusion What started in 1997 as specific strategies to address issues of inequity has now progressed to working towards a culture of inclusion. The City of Melbourne is working on leading a cultural shift within the community that focuses on recognising the varying ability of all individuals, rather then viewing people with disabilities as separate or distinct members of our community. We are striving to demonstrate that a truly inclusive society is one that recognises and celebrates diversity of all its community members rather than concentrating on their differences.

How Local Government Can Assist Equity of Access - Strategies and Actions to address direct and indirect access and participation barriers - whole of Council and community ownership of equity of access as a right of all. - Resources and Assistance - commitment of resources and services to help individuals exercise their rights - Civic Participation - supporting community members to make a difference.

Workshop Format
- Description of processes City of Melbourne employs to develop and implement its latest Disability Action Plan
- The role of the Disability Advisory Committee and the community
- Specific strategies (including achievements, challenges, partnerships) including the State funded MetroAccess initiative
- Presentation on resources and services

Program Title: Accessible Sydney
Presentation: Rights of access: Visitor accessibility in the Sydney CBD through the case of Sydney for All
Simon Darcy, University of Technology Sydney
Bruce Cameron
Tracy Taylor

Abstract: Understanding the broader issues of visitor accessibility is paramount to positive destination experiences and building capacity in the tourism industry. While economic, social and environmental sustainability have become mantras to understanding the triple bottom line of tourism, rarely has government policy or the tourism industry considered ageing and disability within the social construction of tourism environments. For these groups, collectively known as the accessible tourism market, the challenges associated with tourism access are compounded by the cultural context, fragmented approaches to wayfinding and a lack of collaboration by tourism attractions to promote accessible destination experiences. The presentation demonstrates the outcome of the research project that sought to collaboratively promote accessible destination experiences within the Sydney CBD. Sydney for All (http://sydneyforall.visitnsw.com.au/ ) was the outcome of the research, which is the Web portal brand developed by the industry partners of Tourism NSW, the Tourism and Transport Forum, NSW Dept of Environment and Climate Change. The research project was developed through participatory action research with the major stakeholders, tourism attractions and the destination experiences within the Sydney CBD. The Web portal complies with the highest web accessibility standards as evidenced through the rigorous compliance testing by Vision Australia. The demonstration will outline the research approach, underlying philosophy, major accessibility features of the portal and the built-in consumer-based evaluation research module. As will be demonstrated, the portal is a starting point to understanding accessible tourism through focusing on universal design, destination experience and management frameworks rather than using constraints based approaches that dominate mainstream access auditing.

D3.S2.Pan2 – Rm4.233

PANEL: STRUGGLES FOR RIGHTS 2
Chair: Stephen Couling

Program Title: Penalising Social Advocacy
Presentation: Penalising social advocacy: the politics of charitable status
James Goodman, University of Technology Sydney

Abstract: Social change hinges on social advocacy: individual advocacy may offer individual benefit, but it is social advocacy that offers social benefit. It is the capacity to pose social problems and offer social solutions that gives life to civil societies. Yet, in Australia, social advocacy is specifically penalised. Charitable non-government organisations that act as social advocates are liable to be disqualified as charities, and taxed. Why does the tax system create such strong structural incentives for individual rather than social advocacy, and as a corollary, such strong disincentives for social advocacy? The paper reflects on these issues. It outlines the relationship between charity and advocacy in Australia through discussion of the recent successful appeal of AidWatch against an ATO decision to revoke charitable status for 'taking a view' on Government policy.

Program Title: The NSW ADB And Racial Harassment
Presentation: Flaws in the current Anti Discrimination Act
Peter Chan

Abstract: A discussion of a recent case of racial harassment in which the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act was found to be a futile weapon in the defence of children harassed racially at school.

D3.S3.Pan1 – Rm4.234