Reception for Gerry Adams
BRISBANE — Despite attacks from Liberal opposition councillors, who will boycott the event, Labor Mayor Jim Soorley has defended his decision to invite Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams to a civic reception at Brisbane's Town Hall on February 23.
Replying to criticism by the family of Stephen Melrose, a lawyer killed by the Irish Republican Army in Holland in 1990 after being wrongly identified as an off-duty British soldier, Soorley said Adams had sent a clear message that the peace process could spare other families from the pain the Melroses suffered.
PM John Howard and WA Premier Richard Court have refused to meet Adams.
ALP leases power station
HOBART — The Labor state government has leased the Bell Bay power station to private interests contrary to a promise that it would not sell or lease any part of the old Hydro Electric Commission if elected.
The lease is linked to a deal to establish magnesite mining operations in the state's west. The deal will give magnesite miner Crest cheap electricity. Subsidised electricity is routinely offered to big businesses considering setting up in Tasmania, and is paid for by excessive tariffs for domestic consumers.
ATSIC reports to the UN
On February 18, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) sent a report to the United Nations' Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) accusing Australia of breaching its obligations under a UN treaty to end racial discrimination.
The report criticises the federal government's amendments to the Native Title Act; attitude to social justice, self-determination and reconciliation; lack of response to the "stolen generations"; undermining of ATSIC; threat to dismantle the NT land council structures; disruption of the functions of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission; and failure to appoint a commissioner to the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice.
It highlights that key recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody have still not been implemented, and raises concerns about mandatory sentencing legislation in WA and the NT, and continuing systematic discrimination against indigenous Australians in health, housing, education, income and employment.
In 1998, CERD issued a "please explain" notice to the Australian government, the first to a western country.