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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 3 Hansard (6 March) . . Page.. 667 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

It is important to note that the protocol does not create any new rights. However, it provides a mechanism for the enforcement of rights that have already been agreed to by the parties to CEDAW, of which Australia is one.

The optional protocol entered into force on 22 December 2000 following the ratification by the 10th state party, Italy, of the protocol. As of 5 February 2002 there are 73 signatories and 31 parties to CEDAW and the protocol. The first countries to ratify the protocol were Namibia and Senegal on 26 May 2000 and the most recent and 31st was Ecuador, which ratified it on 15 January 2002.

Numerous developed countries with political systems similar to Australia's-such as Ireland, Germany and France-have ratified the protocol. In our own region and as another member of the Commonwealth, New Zealand ratified the protocol on 7 September 2000, over two years ago. It did so on the grounds that ratification would add substance to that country's commitment to women's rights and to CEDAW. Similarly, Australia's ratification of the optional protocol would be a strong expression of our commitment to human rights of women in Australia and worldwide and of our continued support for CEDAW itself.

I believe the federal government should be ashamed of its refusal to sign the optional protocol. Australia is sending a message to the world that it is less committed to women's human rights than are many other nations with fewer resources, countries like Costa Rica, Bangladesh and Kazakhstan, which have signed the optional protocol. It is appalling that Australia, a country that has played such an important and leading role in protecting human rights in the past, now refuses to take the next step in protecting women from discrimination.

Optional protocols such as the one we are discussing today are not radical innovations but a respected part of the international human rights system. Protocols similar to this one have been established under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

In 1992, when Nick Toonan complained to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights about Tasmanian laws prohibiting consensual sexual relations between members of the same sex, he became the first person ever to make a complaint under the optional protocol of the ICCPR. As a result of that complaint those discriminatory and repressive laws were removed. This a clear and positive example of how international human rights protections have been relevant to Australia.

Recently, despite Australia having played a leading role in the development of CEDAW and other human rights conventions, the Australian government has demonstrated its reluctance to support the international system of human rights. The government has said that it wants reform of the UN committee system, which it sees as politically driven, and this is why it has refused to sign the optional protocol.

However, I would like to make it quite clear that by refusing to sign the optional protocol the federal government is giving in and playing politics itself with the international system. Taking their bat and ball and going home and withdrawing from the UN system only restricts opportunities for Australia to participate in further reform. More

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