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Gay activist Edward Young has called on the Rudd government to implement a United Nations directive on equality or remove Australia’s signature to an international covenant on human rights.
When his partner of 38 years – a World War Two veteran – died in 1998, Young was refused the equivalent of a war widow’s pension by the Department of Veterans Affairs. After domestic remedies failed, he took his case to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC).
Australia is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), one of the main international human rights treaties. In 1990 it acceded to the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, which allows individuals to take complaints about violations of their human rights to the UN Human Rights Committee.
In 2003, the UNHRC found Australia was in violation of Article 26 of the covenant. Although it has no official power to do so, the UNHRC directed the Australian government to outlaw discriminatory legislation. But the Howard government ignored the directive.
Young is now calling on the Labor government to take action.
“This was the first time in history that any country in the world that was taken to the UN on an equality before the law matter pertaining to homosexual or lesbian rights in their country has been directed by the UN that they have broken the covenant and therefore must rectify that directive,” he told SX.
“The Labor government were [initially] fully supportive of the Young v Australia case [but] ... I want people to know the Labor government is still not complying with the directive given to them. They are ignoring it. I say that if the Rudd government is a signatory to the covenant, then the previous directive should stand. If we are not going to abide by the directive, the next step should be to remove Australia’s signature to the covenant.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva wrote to Young’s solicitors as recently as November 2007 to find out what Australia is doing to comply with the directive, Young added.
While not addressing the issue of the UN directive, a spokesperson for Federal Attorney-General Robert McLelland told SX: “The government is committed to removing discrimination against same-sex couples in the Veterans Entitlements Act. This will form part of the second tranche of same-sex reforms proposed by the government.”
Meanwhile Queensland’s highest ranking judge Margaret McMurdo has slammed the Opposition for delaying same-sex superannuation reforms, which she says could adversely affect gay judge Justice Michael Kirby when he retires next year.
In a letter she urged the Judicial Conference of Australia to ensure the Bill is passed by the legislature as soon as possible, according to The Australian.
The Bill will be debated by a Senate committee and changes will not be implemented before July 1, as was originally hoped.
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