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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 11 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 3346 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

In September 1948 Bishop Burgmann was approached by Dr Evatt, Australian Minister for External Affairs and President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, to be part of the Australian delegation working on the declaration. On 1 October he joined six other advisers on the Australian delegation in Paris. He and the Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, Eris O'Brien, were the only ecclesiastics on the national delegations, and they worked on committee No. 3. Burgmann commented:

The first vivid impression I received was of the eloquence with which these national representatives confessed each other's sins. They know all about them in detail, and much research must have gone into the business of collecting reports of the iniquities of neighbours. At the same time there was much advertisement of the excellences in the constitution of the states from which the speakers came. All this seemed strange in a gathering bearing the name of the United Nations.

Some would say that in 50 years we would seem to have advanced very little. The challenge was visionary, but the reality was rather mundane. Burgmann's biographer, Peter Hempenstall, says:

Away in Committee 3 tedium was the main worry. Burgmann had no trouble coming to grips with the issues ... But the committee moved at a snail's pace and Burgmann had to listen to interminable speeches on procedure. By the end of his first week they were not as yet agreed on Article One.

Burgmann accepted the lengthy talking as the process of educating the powers to trust one another; it would take time.

And it is still taking time. Hempenstall continues:

On 12 October Committee 3 passed Article One of the Declaration of Human Rights. Burgmann regarded it as historic. `The fact that over 50 nations have got together and discussed fundamental civil and social rights is of the highest educational value. If they keep on doing it long enough the UN will become what it is meant to be, but not yet is.'

Article 1 states:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Then followed 29 other articles, but Burgmann had to return to Australia. Here he continued to address Australia's internal problems and also to ensure that Australia did not lose sight of its place in the wider world and its international obligations.

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