The May South Sydney Herald is out. Nothing by me in it, but I have just been playing boy reporter for the next one – among my activities that curtailed blogging a bit in the past two days. (Other things included seeing Dr C, helping M, and tutoring plus some additions to my students’ pages.)
First the boy reporting gig. I attended a rather interesting Community Consultation meeting organised by the Redfern Legal Centre at Redfern Town Hall last night. The object of the meeting was to prepare community and individual submissions to the National Human Rights Consultation where public submissions are being accepted until 15 June.
The Consultation is a chance to hear people’s ideas about human rights and talk about ways to protect and promote human rights in the future.
Key Consultation Questions
- Which human rights and responsibilities should be protected and promoted?
- Are human rights sufficiently protected and promoted?
- How could Australia better protect and promote human rights?
One thing that emerged for me is that it isn’t a simple matter. Several speakers drew attention to the big difference between legislating rights, or enshrining them in a “Bill of Rights”, and the actual situation in practice and in hearts and minds. We had a range of people including a former asylum seeker who had been in immigration detention for seventeen months but finally made it; interestingly he didn’t see his treatment (he was from Bangladesh) as having been racially motivated, though he did have quite a lot to offer about the system. There were speakers also from the Indigenous community, GLBT, disabilities and multicultural agencies. The chair – and he did an excellent job – was Professor Stuart Rees from the Sydney Peace Foundation.
From last night.
(Dorothy just interrupted this post dropping off my bundles of South Sydney Heralds so later I will “do my rounds”.)
Second, another South Sydney matter that doesn’t concern me immediately: The Ravens. Andrew from South Sydney Uniting Church along with several others is running in the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon on 17 May, raising money for Breast Cancer Network Australia. Support the Ravens here.
May 09 South Sydney Herald PDF
Floating Life 