Labor Senator says Govt should act on UN report Friday 19 March, 1999 (3:40pm AEDT) North Queensland-based Labor Senator Margaret Reynolds says the Federal Government has a responsibility to act on a United Nations report which criticises its handling of native title. Senator Reynolds, who is chairwoman of the Commonwealth Human Rights Advisory Commission says the UN report has found the Government's amended Native Title Act is discriminatory. She says it is time for the Government to admit that there are problems with the Act and to sit down again with indigenous groups. "It's never easy admitting that you have made mistakes, but I think all Australians would recognize that there was goodwill if the government was prepared to call for the opportunity to sit down with indigenous people and to start to work through the amendment and make changes in the future." Williams rejects UN racism concerns Friday 19 March, 1999 (4:15pm AEDT) The United Nations has expressed concern at Australia's record on treatment of indigenous people but the Government rejects the report as unbalanced. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has told Australia to address the concerns as a matter of utmost urgency. It says the ammended Native Title Act discriminates against indigenous Australians and is concerned at the scrapping of the position of Aboriginal Social Justice Commissioner. But the Federal Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, does not accept the report's findings. "The report is an insult to Australia in failing to recognise that there is another side to the story," Mr Williams said. "They don't recognise that the issues that were discussed, were debated for 100 hours in the Federal Parliament." The Prime Minister, John Howard, has also rejected the United Nations report. Mr Howard says Australian laws are made by Australian parliaments, elected by the Australian people and not by UN committees. The report is not binding on Australia. ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
