Australia is a founding member of the United Nations, and has consistently supported the UN’s role in world affairs since this time. Australia was an active participant at the 1945 San Francisco Conference, during which the UN Charter was negotiated. Australia’s delegation to this Conference was led by then Deputy Prime Minister Mr Frank Forde and Minister for External Affairs Dr Herbert ‘Doc’ Evatt, and these two individuals played a significant role in drafting the charter.
According to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs, since 1945 Australian foreign policy has been informed by the underlying principles and purposes of the United Nations: to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations, and
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International human rights law is a subset of public international law, and as such, it engages the commitment of nation states.
Australia is a parliamentary democracy. The Australian Constitution of 1901 established a federal system of government in Australia. Under this system, powers are distributed between a national government (the Commonwealth) and the six States. The Constitution defines the boundaries of law-making powers between the Commonwealth and the States/Territories.
The job of a Senator or a Representative is to make laws that uphold the spirit of the constitution. They can also amend or change the constitution itself. Senators and Representatives work on two documents: bills and resolutions.
The Australian political system is in some ways democratic, and in some ways not. The relationship between Prime Minister, Parliament and electorate seems to me the most democratic part of the system. The undemocratic features include bicameralism, federalism, monarchy, and some others.
The Philippines government has been described as a corrupt democracy. Candidates are routinely heckled and jeered. Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew once said the Philippines needs more discipline and less
Since the dawn of time for a society to work it needs to have a level of structure that applies to everyone and is understood by everyone. Australian legal system is broad and complex. It is the nature of the encompassing laws and regulations which reflect how people, organisations and governments behave on the many different levels of operation and these are created to make sure that everyone understands their rights and obligations. There are two sources of Law in Australia: Statute Law regulated by Parliament and comprise of legislations and acts; and Judge-made Law or Common Law where decisions made by judges are based on previous cases.
Throughout the world, in history and in present day, injustice has affected all of us. Whether it is racial, sexist, discriminatory, being left disadvantaged or worse, injustice surrounds us. Australia is a country that has been plagued by injustice since the day our British ancestors first set foot on Australian soil and claimed the land as theirs. We’ve killed off many of the Indigenous Aboriginal people, and also took Aboriginal children away from their families; this is known as the stolen generation. On the day Australia became a federation in 1901, the first Prime Minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, created the White Australia Policy. This only let people of white skin colour migrate to the country. Even though Australia was the first country to let women vote, women didn’t stand in Parliament until 1943 as many of us didn’t support female candidates, this was 40 years after they passed the law in Australian Parliament for women to stand in elections. After the events of World War Two, we have made an effort to make a stop to these issues here in Australia.
Some Australians believe that the time is right, for Australia to become a republic. There are many arguments, both for and against, regarding this issue.
As well I will outline reasons why the Australian federal system of government is in its current state and what action can be taken to change it.
The Bill of Rights was first originated from England, where it asserts for constitutional protection for individuals, and lists different types of prohibitions on government power (Bill of rights institute, 2016). The action of how Australia became a Federation, it involved complicated constitutional conventions, and how the constitutional founders addressed the complications of enacting a Bill of Rights, they decided not to enact it. McClelland (2002, pg. 138) describes how there were proposals that were rejected to incorporate fundamental rights in Australia’s constitution. Australians basic right were protected by common law, however instead, it was a mixture of
There have been many humanitarians that strive to help countries suffering with human right abuses. People think that the help from IGOs and NGOs will be enough to stop human rights violations. However, it hasn’t been effective. Every day, more and more human rights violations happen. The problem is escalating. People, including children, are still being forced to work to death, innocent civilians are still suffering the consequences of war, and families are struggling to stay firm together. Despite the efforts from the people, IGOs, and NGOs, In the year 2100, human rights abuse will not end.
With an understanding of the theoretical links between economic structures, relations of production, and political systems that protect economic structures in society this case study examines media as a contributor to democracy in Australia as well as a business with economic objectives. This section will provide a short explanation of Fairfax media history and position in 2012 prior to explaining Gina Rinehart’s role in the company. The print sector in Australia has historically exhibited relatively high levels of concentration, dominated by News Corp Australia, Fairfax and APN. The Australian print news media have experienced a long-term trend of a decrease in titles and owners. According to Geoffrey Craig, ‘in 1923 there were as many as
Indigenous Australian land rights have sparked controversy between Non Indigenous and Indigenous Australians throughout history. The struggle to determine who the rightful owners of the land are is still largely controversial throughout Australia today. Indigenous Australian land rights however, go deeper than simply owning the land as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have established an innate spiritual connection making them one with the land. The emphasis of this essay is to determine how Indigenous Australian land rights have impacted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, highlighting land rights regarding the Mabo v. the State of Queensland case and the importance behind today’s teachers understanding and including Indigenous
Indigenous Australians began to be robbed of their rights and freedoms when the Europeans colonized Australia. Since then, Aboriginal people and Indigenous supporters have taken steps towards equality and reconciliation.
According to Thomas Jefferson, all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights. Unalienable rights are rights given to the people by their Creator rather than by government. These rights are inseparable from us and can’t be altered, denied, nullified or taken away by any government, except in extremely rare circumstances in which the government can take action against a particular right as long as it is in favor of the people’s safety. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America mentions three examples of unalienable rights: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. I believe these rights, since they are acquired by every human being from the day they are conceived, should always be respected, but being realistic, most of the time, the government intervenes and either diminishes or
The decision for Australia to adopt the Federal system was on the principle of which the State’s governments wanted to keep their power. For this reason there was the separation of powers between the newly formed Commonwealth government and the existing State governments. At a constitutional level, there are rulings in which the powers are separated, these rulings due to disputes have slightly changed since 1901. These changes all fell towards the one government, the Commonwealth (Federal) government. However this was not just a landslide event, the Constitution of Australia set up this imbalance of powers between the Commonwealth and State governments. We will explore this further in the points discussed later in this essay.
Overall Australia’s human rights record is of high-quality but is blemished by few human rights violations. Australia has freedom of speech, a corruption-free legal system, legal protection against discrimination, access to secondary education, the right to vote in elections, access to clean water, privacy protection, freedo...
In this day and age, the struggle for human rights remains more important than ever. To expound further, the fight for human rights continues to remain a global risk. In spite of recent advances afforded to minority ethnic groups and women, certain groups of people have yet to receive their basic human rights and dignity. To expound further, groups such as illegal immigrants and other minority groups in America continue to have their civility ignored. In particular, nations such as the United States hold a greater responsivity to ensure human rights than other nations.
The Human Rights Commission (2014) state that ‘ Australia was a founding member of the UN and played a prominent role in the negotiation of the UN Charter in 1945. Australia was also one of eight nations involved in drafting the Universal Declaration.’ An advantage of introducing a Bill of Rights would be that all the basic rights and fundamental freedoms stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be incorporated into Australia’s legal system. A disadvantage would be that the Bill of Rights would interfere with Australia’s international obligations, for example the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The State Library of New South Wales (2011) states that ‘Australia is currently party to seven of the nine core international human rights.’ If a Bill of Rights was introduced into the Australian legal system, it would mean that all the basic rights and fundamental freedoms stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be protected by the Australian legal system. Although this would also make it harder for Australia to continue to try and incorporate all nine core international human rights instruments in their legal system. A recommendation would be to try and incorporate all nine core international human rights instruments before considering the idea of a Bill of Rights.
Samuel Huntington once said ‘democratic development occurs when political leaders believe that they have an interest in promoting it or a duty is achieving it’. The interest of the first Filipino president, Marcos, represented more of an authoritarian development. A successful transition to a functioning democracy is largely the result of quality of leadership. The next president was Aquino who introduced more democratic reform than the previous president. Aquino first began with the constitution and reshaping its bill of rights. She emphasised the rights of workers through this reform. This caught the attention of foreign investment since they didn’t want to pay more for labour in the Philippines. They threatened to remover over $2 billion U.S. dollars of foreign investments if this continued. Rather than address this issue in a healthy manor Aquino circumvented legislation and exerted his own authority over the matter to keep the foreign investors in country. This is not the first or the last time a president of the Philippines has acted in more of an authoritarian way. President Ramos and President Estrada both used more authoritarian tactics in regulating the mining industry in the Philippines. The authoritarian style exhibited by the executive branch deviates from the democratic system. By not using the legislative branch, who are suppose to represent the people, to address