May 2004 Issue 

  In  this  Issue

• Honouring the Hon Mary Gaudron

• Inquiry into an Australian Republic

• The State of the World's Children 2004 Report

• UN Commission on Human Rights: Sexual rights are human rights

• ACT Passes First Human Right Bill 

• Medicare Plus: The Illusion of Social Justice
• A Head Start for Australia: An Early Years Framework
• The Real Masculinity Crisis
• Grubby Sex Has Just Become a Bit Noisier
• Women are Region's Peacemakers, But Excluded from Leadership
• Streets Ahead
• World Uranium Weapons Conference
• Commission on the Status of Women Forty-Eighth Session       

• UN Study on Impact of Globalization Shows Uneven Results

Honouring the Hon Mary Gaudron Q.C.

On 5 March 2004 a conference was held at the University of Melbourne to honour the contribution that the Hon Mary Gaudron Q.C. has made to women and the law.

 Jennifer Batrouney,  S.C., President of the Australian Women Lawyers presented a Paper in which she focused on five main areas which manifest Mary Gaudron's outstanding  contribution – work practices, difference, equality, patronage and merit.  She also referred to Justice Gaudron as the coach of the team, whose speeches would always give women lawyers the "courage to keep going" when "the pervasive male culture becomes almost overwhelming."  "You have shown us that we can succeed, and that we can succeed, not despite our differences, but because of them.  We can succeed as women and be proud of it. "  

Jennifer Batrouney is a Senior Counsel at the Victorian Bar, practising in administrative law, tax and superannuation.  She completed her articles at Blake Dawson Waldron and after 3 years was called to the Bar.  She signed the Bar Roll in May 1991 and took silk in 2000.  She has been a member of the Law Council’s taxation committee since 1991 and was a State Councillor of the Taxation Institute from 1997 until 2002.  She was a member of the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal from 2001 until 2003.  She sits on various Victorian Bar committees, including the Legal Education and Training Committee and the Professional Indemnity Insurance Committee.  She is assistant convenor of the Women Barristers’ Association and President of Australian Women Lawyers.

To view Jennifer Batrouney's Paper, see: Honouring Mary Gaudron’s Contribution to Australian Law. 

 (For other papers presented at the Conference see: http://www.law.unimelb.edu.au/cccs/whatson/GaudronProgram.pdf)

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Inquiry into an Australian Republic

On 26 June 2003, the Senate referred the Inquiry into an Australian Republic to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee.

The Committee has determined to report by 3 August 2004.

Terms of Reference

(a)  the most appropriate process for moving towards the establishment of an Australian republic with an Australian Head of State;  and

(b)  alternative models for an Australian republic, with specific reference to:

(i)  the functions and powers of the Head of State

(ii)  the method of selection and removal of the Head of State,  and

(iii)  the relationship of the Head of State with the executive, the parliament and  the judiciary.

The committee is also required to facilitate wide community participation in this inquiry by conducting public hearings throughout Australia, including in rural and regional areas.

The Committee has issued a discussion paper to facilitate and focus debate.

To view the Discussion Paper see: Inquiry into an Australian Republic

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The State of the World's Children 2004 Report

The Official Summary of The State of the World's Children 2004 highlights the content and main messages of UNICEF's yearly flagship publication: the relationship of girls' education and development goals and the promise of Education For All. The Summary contains 10 statistical tables with economic and social data on the nations of the world, with particular reference to children's well-being, including a new table on child protection. 

See: Excerpts of the Executive Summary of  The World’s Children 2004  Report

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UN Commission on Human Rights: Sexual rights are human rights

As the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva draws to an end, activists and like-minded governments have achieved an important victory over a concerted backlash against sexual rights, with the reaffirmation in the Commission's resolution on violence against women that "...women have the right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence". The text had proved contentious during negotiations but was adopted without challenge.

"Sexual rights are human rights," Amnesty International affirmed today. "There is a long legacy of advocacy on sexuality and human rights within the UN arena that will continue until all people are free to exercise all their human rights without discrimination of any kind. The lives and security of countless people across the globe will depend on it."

The issue of sexual rights emerged as a theme cutting across several resolutions at this year's Commission. Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, in his 2004 report noted that "...sexuality is a characteristic of all human beings. It is a fundamental aspect of an individual's identity. It helps to define who a person is" (E/CN.4.2004/49 paragraph 54). However, sexuality also proved the basis for attempts to deny individuals the full enjoyment of their human rights, by a small number of delegations, including USA, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia who claim that the Special Rapporteur exceeded his mandate in addressing these issues. 

"Delegations have invoked incorrect interpretations of international law and resorted to long disproved 'medical' arguments to dismiss sexual rights concerns. Just reaffirming previously agreed language has proved a real challenge," Amnesty International stated.

At the request of Brazil as the lead sponsor, the draft resolution on human rights and sexual orientation, which sought only to reaffirm human rights long-established in international law, was again postponed until next year's session. This resulted from opposition by a number of states questioning whether this issue belonged on the human rights agenda at all.

As in previous years, some states objected to the Commission reaffirming the obligation of states to protect the right to life of all persons under their jurisdiction, including those killed because of their sexual orientation. The resolution on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions was only adopted after this paragraph survived a vote called by Pakistan on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

The Canadian-led resolution on the elimination of violence against women was also adopted by consensus but only after two amendments tabled by the USA had been defeated. The purpose of the draft amendments had been to weaken the language on sexual and reproductive health care services and delete language calling on states to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which recognizes that sexual violence, including rape, can constitute a war crime or a crime against humanity.

"The Commission on Human Rights must act on the findings of its own appointed human rights experts, most recently the Special Rapporteur on the right to health, who notes in his report that 'the correct understanding of fundamental human rights principles, as well as existing human rights norms, leads ineluctably to the recognition of sexual rights as human rights' (E/CN.4.2004/49 paragraph 54)."

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ACT Passes First Human Right Bill 

THE ACT has become the first place in Australia to have a Bill of Rights. On 2 March 2004, the Legislative Assembly passed  a human rights law which includes the right to life, physical wellbeing, privacy, equality before the law, fair trial and freedom from forced work. ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said the Bill was an historic first.  

The territory legislation is based on international covenants aimed at protecting individual, civil and political rights.  It is the first time notions such as freedom of expression and conscience have been placed into Australian law.

The ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, says it is minimalist, concerned with promoting awareness of human rights amongst law makers and bureaucrats.

The Preamble to this Bill is excerpted below:

Preamble 

1 Human rights are necessary for individuals to live lives of dignity and value. 

2 Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of individuals improves the welfare of the whole community. 

3 Human rights are set out in this Act so that individuals know what their rights are. 

4 Setting out these human rights also makes it easier for them to be taken into consideration in the development and interpretation of legislation. 

5 This Act encourages individuals to see themselves, and each other, as the holders of rights, and as responsible for upholding the human rights of others. 

6 Few rights are absolute. Human rights may be subject only to the reasonable limits in law that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. One individual’s rights may also need to be weighed against another individual’s rights. 

7 Although human rights belong to all individuals, they have special significance for Indigenous people—the first owners of this land, members of its most enduring cultures, and individuals for whom the issue of rights protection has great and continuing importance.

To view the Bill see: http://www.legislation.act.gov.au/b/db_8266/default.asp 

Source: ACT Gov Legislation & ABC

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Medicare Plus: The Illusion of Social Justice

In her Speech to the Medicare Forum on 16 March 2004, Carmen Lawrence analyses the current government's approach to Medicare and Labor's vision for it.

"The Government, of course, continues to pay lip service to Medicare and universal provision while acting in ways which undermine universality. Their underpinning philosophy is user pays, replacing government with private provision.

On the contrary, we in the Labor Party believe that it is fundamentally important in a civilised society that health care should not be dependent on capacity to pay."

She details the strategies used by the government over its term to undermine confidence in Medicare:

· Medicare for pensioners and card holders only - still on the agenda and a step closer with so-called safety net;

· Medicare levy surcharge for high incomes earners who don’t take out PHI – done;

· Bulk billing abolished except for welfare recipients – still trying and getting closer after the recent changes;

· Refundable tax credits to provide ongoing assistance to income earners below 30,000 who take out PHI - done in spades, expanded to all and introduced as the 30% rebate;

· Gap insurance for medical and hospital bills; almost done 

· Rebate to be reduced from 85% to 75% of Medicare schedule fee – effectively achieved by stealth. The government has undermined bulk billing by GPs by setting the scheduled fee at an unrealistically low level. In my own seat, this has caused the bulk billing rate to drop by 13.1% since 2000.

Whether you agree with sustaining Medicare or not, Carmen presents a well-thought out argument with support for her view that Howard has achieved the "Fightback agenda" for Medicare.

To view Carmen Lawrence's Speech see: Medicare Under Attack

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A Head Start for Australia: An Early Years Framework

A Head Start for Australia: An Early Years Framework is a blue-print that sets out what we can do - individually and as a community - to give all Australian kids a great 'head start' in life.

National and international research identifies the areas in which we can take action that will have immediate and long term benefits for young children.

The framework shows that everyone has a role to play in helping to give kids a head start - all levels of government, businesses, families, even people without kids.

By working together and investing in the critical early years of a child's life, we can grow up kids who are healthy, happy and productive. This will bring benefits to all of us - as individuals and as a nation.

A Head Start for Australia: An Early Years Framework was jointly developed by the NSW Commission for Children and Young People, the Commission for Children and Young People (Qld) and the National Investment for the Early Years (NIFTeY).

Below is an excerpt of the Report which lists the areas which are focused on in the Report.

1. Supporting the wellbeing of women of child-bearing age.

2. Promoting child wellbeing.

3. Supporting the choices of families in their parental and working roles.

4. Enriching, safe and supportive environments for children.

5. Improving economic security for families and reducing child poverty.

6. Achieving success in learning and social development.

7. Protecting the safety of children.

8. Promoting connections across generations, families, cultures and communities.

9. Increasing children’s participation: policy action, awareness raising and advocacy.

To achieve these outcomes, there is a need for a number of broad underpinning strategies:

A skilled and safe workforce.

Evidence-based policy and program development and implementation.

Redesigning systems and services to support coordinated action.

A sustained and sustainable communication strategy to focus community and government attention

and action.

To view the Report, A Head Start for Australia: An Early Years Framework see: 

• Full report: PDF format (975KB)

• Summary report: PDF format (444KB)

Source: Kidsnsw.gov.au

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Sexism and Homophobia

Senator Brian Greig is the Democrats spokesman on sexuality issues. He was elected to the Senate for Western Australia in 1998 and was Interim Leader of the Australian Democrats from 22 August 2002 to 5 October 2002.  In the article below that was published in The Age in April 2004, Brian Greig questions what he feels lies behind recent  issues being raised in the Parliament. Sexism and homophobia lie behind the arguments of Latham and Howard he writes.

The Real Masculinity Crisis

What is this "crisis of masculinity" we keep hearing so much about, and where do we locate it?

Mark Latham says it's about single-parent families, and you find it where boys grow up without dads. John Howard says it's about same-sex couples adopting children, and you find it with lesbians raising sons. The Catholic Church says it's about an abundance of women teachers, and you find it in classrooms without male role models.

Scratch the surface of these arguments, and what you really find is good old-fashioned sexism and homophobia. The unstated concern about boys being raised by single mums, living in lesbian households and taught by female teachers, is the notion that this produces an "effeminisation" of males, and the fear it may lead to homosexuality itself.

The myth of the "overbearing mother and distant father" as the cause of male homosexuality is alive and well. Thus, the "crisis in masculinity" is little more than a diversionary debate that hides what more properly might be regarded as the real crisis of masculinity. That is, many men's general anxiety about homosexuality and discomfort with female authority.

Neither Howard nor Latham have expressed any concern about girls being raised by dads or girls not having a balance of male teachers in the classroom.

Neither Howard nor Latham has expressed any concern about the glass ceiling for women in the workplace, nor the low numbers of women found in areas such as science, engineering or politics.

The Catholic Church sees no hypocrisy in having only male popes and refusing women into the priesthood.

Role models, it seems, are only important for males.

The church compounds its hypocrisy with its successful demand for special rights in employment law. Only religious organisations have the lawful exemption to refuse homosexual teachers employment. The result is that it turns away many decent male teachers and at the same time perpetuates the myth that gays are a physical and moral threat to children.

And then it conveniently overlooks the shocking levels of sexual abuse by its own clergy.

The rampant sexual assault of women and children by men is a very real example of a "crisis in masculinity", that could be better addressed by our political leaders, rather than them pursue the nonsensical notion that having male teachers produces more "rounded" boys.

We should acknowledge also, that a key reason for the low numbers of male teachers is the profession being perceived as "caring and nurturing", and thus the domain of women.

This sexism in workplace relations has also conditioned women to be more accepting of casual, part-time and insecure employment.

Curiously, at a time when several rugby league and AFL players are accused of being rapists, there is a deafening silence about the crisis of masculinity that underpins this. Is anyone going to seriously suggest that this misogynous aggression is the result of single mums, lesbian parents and female teachers?

The disturbing levels of male violence and appalling rates of male suicide are indicators of the real crisis in masculinity. Nowhere is this more evident than in domestic violence and the explosive results from relationship breakdown, child custody disputes and battles in the Family Court.

We are repeatedly told by sincere and well-meaning men's groups that suicide by aggrieved dads is a national tragedy, and it is. But it does not follow that the Family Court and its alleged "female bias" is to blame. The cause rests with many men's difficulties with interpersonal skills, inability to work through relationship issues and an almost complete paralysis when it comes to addressing emotions and expressing feelings.

Here you will find a crisis of masculinity.

This is where we can learn from women. I'm being careful not to generalise gender traits or polarise the sexes, but often women deal with issues quite differently from men. In the home, the workplace and the classroom, women tend to be less confrontational, more inclusive, less egotistical, less hung up about sexuality, more conscious of not causing people to lose face, more in touch with their emotions and less inhibited about expressing them. Not always, but often.

Men should recognise these qualities, not fear them.

Women's roles as mothers and teachers is a positive influence on boys, and is a small counterbalance to the masculine imagery and ethos that floods their senses daily through popular culture, sports, and television.

Masculinity is not defined by an absence of things female, but in the comfort and confidence that comes with embracing the yin and yang of the sexes.

The real crisis in masculinity is the knee-jerk reaction to any perception of "female" thinking and behaviour, the accepted culture of male violence and power, and the psychosis many men have towards sexual difference.

Source: 
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/01/1080544625786.html

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Grubby Sex Has Just Become a Bit Noisier -

By Germaine Greer

There's nothing new about "roasting" - women being shared between sportsmen, writes Germaine Greer.

When I was a little girl, I used to beg my father, who managed the St Kilda cricket team, to let me go with him and see his lads play. But he wouldn't countenance it. As a 17-year-old interpreter at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, I soon found out why.

Girls who hung around sportsmen were understood to be asking for it. If they caught a competitor's eye, there was a good chance of wham! bam! but none whatever of a "thank you, ma'am".

If a sporting opportunity for sex of any kind arises, sportsmen will go for it, especially if their mates, who are also their rivals for places in the team, are looking on, daring them, chivvying them, winding them up.  If alcohol has been taken, disinhibition can be total. Acts of astonishing grossness enter the mythical record, fuelling hours of happy reminiscence. 

One of the most important mechanisms for binding any company of men involves shared transgression and mutual guilt. No matter how revolting or destructive the behaviour, none of the men involved should ever breathe a word of it to an outsider; the penalty for doing so is the most painful of all: permanent exclusion from the group.

As long ago as 1970, the American baseballer Jim "Bulldog" Bouton caused utter consternation by publishing his diary for 1969, which included graphic descriptions of what baseballers did together when they weren't on the field. Ball Four described what would now seem rather mild transgressions: looking up women's dresses amid ribald commentary, and the occasional gang-bang with one of the groupies, called "Baseball Annies".

A favourite sport was "shooting beaver". This involved getting on the roof of the team hotel and peering into all the hotel windows in search of the sight of a woman undressed, on the toilet, in the shower, whatever, and then calling the whole team to assemble and enjoy the show. The best bit was when they would all cheer and the appalled woman would register that her innocent and private behaviour had been witnessed. The fun went out of it if she gave the impression that she was deliberately exhibiting herself. She had to be unknowing, like a deer in the sights.

Bouton's treachery was bitterly resented. He was released by the Houston Astros in 1970 and it was not until April 1977 that he was signed again. What Bouton was describing was and is, and probably always will be, the morality of the locker room. This is why no sportsman would allow his daughter to hang around his teammates or act like the fans he has seen so often abused. The same rape fodder climbs through ventilators to get into the toilets, will perform any sexual service no matter how debasing, because it's the only contact with their idols they can get.

Good family men have been known to succumb to the groupies' onslaught, believing that as long as they don't kiss these desperate creatures, as long as they make no move that could be interpreted as a sign of affection, they haven't been genuinely unfaithful. Indeed, the more brutal the treatment of the women, the less they have to reproach themselves for. Pack rape in such circumstances can come to seem guiltless, a condign punishment for being a stupid slag even.

So there is nothing new about "roasting", the sharing out of eager women between sportsmen, nothing new about the women feeling humiliated and used, nothing new about the contempt and hostility that the sportsmen who are abusing complaisant women express.

Two elements do seem to have changed. There's no question that the women are stroppier. They're not embarrassed to say they agreed to sex with one man they'd only just met, or even with two, but they insist that they hadn't agreed to being brutalised, insulted or humiliated, and they want redress. 

They might well be insisting on the right to free expression of their own desires, which include shagging the odd hyper-fit footballer, provided he doesn't abuse the privilege. But they also seem quite interested in another factor in sex with footballers - namely, indecent amounts of money.

The chances of a conviction for rape, in a case where footballers have had sex with a half-drunk woman, say, are virtually nil, but the chances for a significant pay-off from the club or the individual players are good. 

The current system of accusation and withdrawal, complaint followed by dismissal of charges, failed attempts to injunct and so forth, fits the pattern. Most of the cases now on the books will fizzle.

This is not to say that the women who scream and holler haven't been abused, but that publicity is more effective than the law in obtaining redress, especially when there's as much money sloshing around as there is in football. The impression that rugby players are a different breed, who never behave like pigs or enjoy humiliating women, is in flat contradiction to the facts.

If you're passed on the road by a bus with a huge bare arse pressed against every window, chances are the arses belong to rugby players. And rugby songs are the filthiest of all. Rugby players don't end up in court or the tabloids for the simple reason that they haven't any money. The same holds for athletes, for swimmers, and even for cricketers.

Big-name sports stars are marked men; even if they use prostitutes, they run the risk of bringing their sport into disrepute if the prostitute decides to seize the opportunity to have her semi-clad body draped across a centrefold together with salacious details of whether the athlete in question was "well-endowed" or not.

All the more reason, you might think, for the athletes to behave with more discretion. This is, from some points of view, a tall order. All athletes live on a knife edge. All are only as good as their last performance. All are incessantly reminded there is only one way to go after reaching the top. 

The footballers' situation is the most precarious of all. As the last in the pecking order, after club owners, directors and managers, players are denied adult status. They are "boys" to be bought and sold, transferred or dropped or left on the bench; as they are denied autonomy, we can't be surprised if they lack responsibility.

Their survival depends on luck and is as fragile as a hamstring. Much of the concerted misbehaviour that ends in catastrophe begins as an attempt to discharge accumulated tension, which is no excuse. 

It is notable that most of the footballers who have been making the headlines are young and single. But not all. Some have been very much married, and to trophy wives. The grey tribe of journalists scratches its collective head and wonders how, with that gorgeous creature indoors, they could be found with their mates drunkenly tupping a stranger in some hotel room. So are cliches perpetuated.

Athletes don't get involved in sordid behaviour because they need sex, but because they need sordidness. They need to do something so disgusting that it enters the unwritten record book, causing amusement and amazement in equal parts for as long as the team shall live.

Until now, they could keep the lid on this can of worms; the victims kept shtoom, the newspapers were paralysed by the threat of libel suits and astronomical pay-outs. At worst, the club could buy silence. Now that the women are beefing and the papers are printing and wives are walking out, the players are more vulnerable than ever.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday March 23 2004

Women are Region's Peacemakers, But Excluded From Leadership

By Dr Elsina Wainwright, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 

UNIFEM's International Women's Day Breakfast Sydney

In the South Pacific, it is often women who suffer the most during and after the conflict, writes Elsina Wainwright.

Women in the South Pacific face many challenges. In Melanesia conflict and political instability exacerbate their situation. In the Solomon Islands, women faced ethnic conflict and then lawlessness as armed gangs held sway before last year's Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission. 

In Bougainville, women have endured the horrors of civil war, including rape and other violence. In Fiji, the 1987 and 2000 coups brought instability, damaged the economy, and fanned ethnic tensions. When instability and conflict prevail, it is too often the women who suffer the most. And fresh problems arise in post-conflict societies like Bougainville and Solomon Islands.

Many men used to the status they gained from war and weapons have trouble reintegrating into a fragile postwar society with few employment opportunities. Too often they take their frustration out on their wives and children. Alcohol abuse increases, and domestic violence rates rise. 

This situation is compounded by the dominance of men in traditional South Pacific society. Men are the public decision-makers and political leaders. If women exert any influence, it is behind the scenes. The Solomon Islands pidgin word for "husband" is "boss".

Women in Melanesia are also affected by the inadequate delivery of services such as health and education, particularly in isolated areas. In PNG the problem is acute, where service delivery has ground to a virtual halt in some parts of the Highlands.

Notwithstanding all these challenges, South Pacific women have played a critical role in ending conflict and building peace. In Bougainville in the 1990s, women came together to promote peace and reconciliation, often putting themselves in danger to tell the men to stop the fighting. 

In the Solomon, women in the capital Honiara interposed themselves between the two militias for weeks in an effort to end the conflict. They formed the Women for Peace Group, which worked with militia groups, the government and others to promote peace in 2000. It is now internationally recognised that women are often best placed to act as peacemakers in war-torn or insecure societies. But this crucial role in ending conflict and building peace has not translated into a greater role for women in the formal peace processes, or in the post-conflict society.

In Bougainville, women were relegated to the sidelines of the peace talks, and have been marginalised in the autonomy process. In the Solomon Islands, women were in large part excluded from discussions once ethnic conflict ended in 2000. It is imperative that South Pacific women acquire a leadership role in the formal peace processes and in their societies. 

South Pacific women's groups are working to improve women's status in society, and a lot is being done to assist South Pacific women to play a greater leadership role. UNIFEM, the UN's development fund for women, is working to raise awareness of women's constitutional rights and to encourage women to take leadership roles.

AusAID and many non-governmental organisations are doing much to improve the lives of women in the region. It is important that women continue to be deployed on assistance missions - as police, for example, or lawyers or financial experts. They serve as role models for the women in that society, and send an important signal to the men. One of the lessons from East Timor and Bosnia is that women prefer relaying their conflict experiences to other women.

Australians over the past decade or two have largely forgotten the South Pacific. We tend to know more about Europe, the US and the Middle East than we do about our neighbours. That needs to change. Last year the Australian Government turned its attention back to the South Pacific. It is time for all Australians to reconnect with the region. We need to re-establish people-to-people links with the South Pacific, including business to business, student to student, and also women to women.

International Women's Day is a day to rejoice in how far women have come, to remind ourselves how far we have to go, and to redouble our efforts to assist other women around the world to have peaceful, prosperous futures. 

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday March 9 2004

Streets Ahead

By Emma-Kate Symons

JESSIE Street packed more into her crowded life than most. Suffragette and feminist, Labor Party candidate, socialist, international peace activist and campaigner for Aboriginal rights, she was more influential than most parliamentarians, and for more than 50 years a serious player on the 20th-century international stage.

A World Peace Council colleague of Paul Robeson and Pablo Picasso, and feminist contemporary of Nancy Astor and Eleanor Roosevelt, Street was the only woman on the Australian delegation to found the UN in 1945. She was vice-chairwoman of the first two sessions of the UN commission on the status of women. And she remains the only woman to initiate a change to the Australian Constitution - the successful 1967 referendum on the status of Aborigines.

But ask most people to name Australia's most significant feminist and they'll come up with Germaine Greer, more a polemicist than an activist who effected practical change.

"I'm glad we have (Germaine) Greer but what we don't have today are women like Jessie Street who are very focused, who recognise where power lies and are prepared to learn everything they need to to effect change," says Lenore Coltheart, a political historian and editor of Street's newly revised autobiography.

Compared with Greer, the number of firsts in Street's life is extraordinary. But Street, known as "Red Jessie" for her pro-Soviet stance during the Cold War, when she had to leave Australia for six years, remains the hidden woman of Australian 20th-century history. Her leftist sympathies and notoriety in the McCarthyist 1950s have overshadowed her legacy - which saw her playing a role in or being present at key historical moments of the past century. She features only in passing in most Australian history and women in politics courses at schools and universities.

Street, who died in 1970, was the daughter-in-law, wife and mother of three chief justices of NSW. Her family, through the Jessie Street Trust, have supported the release of her corrected and updated autobiography - to be launched tonight in Sydney by former law reform commissioner Justice Elizabeth Evatt - in the hope that Street's life and legacy will become known to a new generation of Australians.

The youngest of Street's four children, Laurence Street, the former NSW chief justice, tells The Australian his mother was "somewhat of a contradiction".

"She was a very whole figure in the sense of her personal and family relationships and with her friends and those who supported her, and particularly her children," he says.

"She had a very warm affectionate personality. But at the same time integrated into her was her political instinct. It was really the search for social justice which was the main driving force in her life." 

Street was the tomboy daughter of the squattocracy. Born in India, she moved as a young girl with her family to their Clarence River farm in NSW where she became enamoured with horse riding and cattle raising. Her independence and innate belief in equality was manifest early. She spent much time with the local Aboriginal stockmen and their families, and tried to evade the restrictions on someone supposed to learn "to behave like a little lady".

"As far back as I can remember, I had always hated being a girl," she writes in her chapter The Bushranger, named after the moniker she earned at a progressive women's boarding school in England. 

Accustomed to international travel from a young age, Street had an uncanny knack for being in the right international troublespot at the right time. She was part of London's pre-World War I suffragette marches and in London again for the outbreak of war. She crossed the Atlantic en route to New York (to study the economic causes of prostitution) weeks before the sinking of the Lusitania.

In 1930, she travelled to Geneva to study how global women's groups were lobbying the League of Nations. She was with her daughter Philippa in Austria after the Anschluss in 1938, and in the Sudetenland just before Hitler invaded, before she travelled to the Soviet Union.

Despite her internationalism, and feeling of being at home when she was in London, Street was central to the formation of Australia's first feminist activist organisations. She was the founder and president of the United Associations of Women from 1929, Australia's first umbrella feminist group. 

At the time she pushed for the introduction of national social insurance, equal pay, women's permission to serve on juries and the formation of the nurses' union. During the Depression she campaigned against employment discrimination against women, in the form of new laws forcing married women to resign from teaching jobs.

"She was very much affected by  the Depression in Australia," Laurence Streetsays. "She saw a great deal of hardship in the 1930s although her activism goes right back to pre-World War I."

In 1943 she almost won the blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Wentworth, where she lived in Sydney's east, as the Labor candidate. Street was also the vice-chairwoman of the first UN commission on the status of women, held in San Francisco in 1945. She retained the position for two sessions until the Chifley Labor government, fearful of Street's alleged far left-wing connections, withdrew its support.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Street's life is her relationship with her husband Kenneth. Despite his upper-class status and the prejudices of his time, he didn't prevent his equally well-to-do wife from pursuing her passion for social justice and her international political travels.

Kenneth Street was made chief justice of the NSW Supreme Court in 1950 - the year Jessie left Australia, under suspicion of being a communist. She moved to London and became an international cause celebre. The Menzies government withdrew her passport and she was deported from France, as well as turned away from the US en route to the UN.

"I think that Jessie Street's work and her chosen profession and her views were very embarrassing to her maternal family, let alone her husband's family and possibly to her children, and many of her colleagues," Coltheart explains.

"Being slightly embarrassing is one thing but to be politically persona non grata when your husband is the chief justice of NSW is another. To me that suggests a very strong marriage and a very strong bond." 

Additions to the revised autobiography include a letter to her daughter Belinda, dated July 1955, that hints at family dissension over Street's radical views.

"I have read what you say about my 'views' and 'how far you have gone from us in thoughts and ideas since you left Australia'," Street wrote. "My views now are those I adopted during the Depression when I became a socialist and joined the Labor Party ... and as for being a 'fanatic' everyone who has believed in reform and tried to do something about it from Christ until today (and no doubt before Christ) has been called a fanatic."

Coltheart says she hasn't found any evidence Street, who was under ASIO surveillance for decades, was a member of the Communist Party. Street always denied it. But she was mesmerised by Soviet-style socialism. "Her wild excitement at seeing a woman driving a train in 1938 as a piece of evidence that the Soviet Union had the secret of the equality of women -- well even at the time you might have been wanting to look at something more," Coltheart says.

However Coltheart is wary of labels such as naive because of the way they have been used to trivialise the contribution of women such as Street. Street was seen by many as a class traitor and her wealthy background made her a figure of suspicion for some on the Left. But she knew she was privileged.

"Had it not been for the co-operation and reliability of our nurse, who was a second mother to the children and the various cooks and housemaids who were with us, I could never have taken so many outside responsibilities," she writes in the autobiography.

"I was well aware that the vast majority of wives were unable to gain the freedom to do any outside work, even to earn their own living." Laurence Street, who has named his young daughter Jessie, prefers not to speculate on how his mother would rate the contemporary state of Australian feminism. But he agrees Jessie Street's vision and record offer a fine example to the present generation of feminists and those with an interest in social justice.

"That was one of the driving forces of Jessie's life - the inequity of women being second-class citizens in every way," he says. "We've moved an enormous way since then but still there's an enormous way to go." 

Source: The Australian --- Tuesday March 9 2004

October 24, 2003 Hamburg, Germany

Hamburg--The World Depleted Uranium(DU)/Uranium Weapons Conference was held October 16-19, 2003, at the University of Hamburg, Germany. More than 200 participants represented 21 nations from five continents, which included Iraq, Afghanistan, Australia, Japan, US, Canada, UK, Sweden, Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Algeria, Cuba, and Malta.

The evidence coming from the scientists, health professionals and legal experts at this Conference is clear: DU is causing significant health effects worldwide, and it is illegal under existing international law and convention, concluded conference planner Marion Küpker, co-coordinator of the German anti-weapons group Gewaltfreie Aktion Atomwaffen Abschaffen (GAAA). .Now it's up to the activist community to force rogue governments like the US and Britain to observe international law the same way they preach it to other nations.

Over 35 speakers including scientists, medical professionals, Iraqi medical and environmental professionals, independent researchers, international legal experts, military professionals, a nuclear weapons lab whistleblower, a prosecutor for the International War Crimes Tribunal for Afghanistan, veterans and their families, civilians, NGO, and peace and anti-globalization activists presented their most recent findings and issues about the effects of these illegal weapons. Iraqi scientist, Dr. Souad Al-Azzawi, received the internationally recognized Nuclear Free Future Award and prize of 10,000 Euros on October 12, just prior to the Conference. She presented her findings on environmental studies of DU contamination of air, soil and water in southern Iraq from the 1991 Gulf War.

• the use of DU/Uranium weapons is, and has always been, illegal under existing laws (both international and U.S. military) and conventions

• future campaigns and treaties should replace 'ban' with the term 'abolition' of DU/Uranium weapons

• to support the independent International War Crimes Tribunal for Iraq in 2004 on the issues of so-called depleted uranium, uranium weapons or radioactive weapons used in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan

• environmental DU contamination and epidemiological evidence in southern Iraq presented by the Iraqi professionals established a direct link between DU and observed increases in radiation related diseases

• the Conference rejects the ICRP model for internal exposure to small radioactive particles, like DU, and recommends that the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) extend the 2003 model on low-level radiation to the analysis of the health risk from DU

• there is an urgent need to establish an independent research and teaching institution, a Free University to provide credible research results independent of the manipulations and funding pressures exerted by governments and institutions backing the nuclear lobby

• UNEP and WHO should be pressured to become independent from the IAEA, recognized as part of the nuclear lobby, in order to conduct comprehensive screening in contaminated areas including monitoring and decontamination of battlefields, testing grounds, manufacturing sites and military installations worldwide 

• medical care should be provided immediately for effected military and civilians 

Complete Conference resolutions and findings at http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de

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Commission on the Status of Women Forty-Eighth Session                              

ROLE OF MEN, BOYS IN ACHIEVING GENDER EQUALITY, WOMEN’S ROLE IN CONFLICT

As the Commission on the Status of Women opened its forty-eighth session on 1 March 2004, Jose Antonio Ocampo, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, told delegates that the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality -– one of the two main themes of the forty-eighth session -– was vital for future work in promoting equality between men and women.

Improved relations between women and men, he continued, could not be achieved by women alone, and men must be fully integrated into the process.  Ways must be found of encouraging men to understand gender equality and its positive consequences.

The Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, Angela E.V. King, noted that the Commission had rightly placed the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality on its agenda.  Their involvement in promoting gender equality was critical to reaching gender balance in a number of areas.  Real change would come only when stereotypical attitudes, which inhibited women’s advancement and impeded efforts for gender equality, were once and for all removed.

As the Commission began its general debate, speakers emphasized the importance of including women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, as well as in post-conflict peace-building -– the other main theme of the Commission’s two-week session.  Women in armed conflicts, noted Finland ’s Minister of Labour, Tarja Filatov, were often seen as merely victims of war.  However, as active subjects and often direct participants in conflict, they could have a crucial role in conflict resolution and peace processes.

Speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated States, Ireland’s Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, William O’Dea, said that women had proven to be innovators in building bridges between parties divided by conflict and should have full input in promoting and preserving peace, as well as in the reconciliation and reconstruction process in the aftermath of wars.

In the afternoon, the Commission convened a high-level round table, which provided an opportunity for the users and producers of statistics to share national experiences, good practices and lessons learned in measuring progress in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, and for identifying gaps and challenges and possible solutions.

During the discussion, which was co-chaired by the Chairperson of the Commission on the Status of Women, Kyung-wha Khang ( Republic of Korea ), and Katherine Wallman ( United States ), Vice-Chair of the Statistical Commission, speakers underlined the value of statistics as an important tool for advocacy and lobbying to change laws and policies.  It was important, they said, for governments to publish statistics in order to show the real situation of men and women within countries.

Speakers stressed that statistics were a vital tool in achieving gender goals laid down in the Beijing Platform for Action, and in monitoring the effectiveness of gender-based policies and programmes.  They also underscored the value of statistics in improving the socio-economic situation of women, enhancing their participation in politics, and highlighting unequal resources between the sexes.  Echoing the concerns of other delegates, Pakistan ’s representative emphasized the need to forward gender disaggregated data to all policy-makers in achieving broad-based gender equality.

DELEGATES TO WOMEN’S COMMISSION STRESS NEED TO ENGAGE MALES IN ELIMINATING STEREOTYPES, DISCRIMINATION

They Must Be Involved in Changing
Men and boys must engage actively in changing mindsets as well as eliminating stereotypes and discrimination in the global struggle to achieve gender equality, the Minister for Community Development, Gender and Children of the United Republic of Tanzania said today as the Commission on the Status of Women concluded its general debate.

Minister Asha Rose Migiro said that if males were excluded from that process, many gender goals and targets might never be achieved.  Moreover, male involvement in gender equality must occur at an early stage for both girls and boys, with the syllabi and curricula of formal and informal education structures focusing on gender perspectives and sensitivities.

Echoing those sentiments, the representative of Bangladesh noted that while creating awareness of the need for gender parity was done mainly at the family and school levels in his country, public authorities and non-governmental organizations also worked together to convince men and boys that gender mainstreaming meant acting in partnerships.

Cuba ’s delegate said that her country’s struggle to achieve equal rights and opportunities for women had always involved men.  Attempts to achieve gender equality had focused on non-sexist education from the preschool years, where girls and boys shared household chores.  Recently, Cuba had adopted the new Maternity Act, which acknowledged the right of both parents to a shared a one-year post-natal leave with a guaranteed 60 per cent of their salaries.

Many speakers also highlighted the urgent need to educate men and boys in the gender-equality process if significant progress was ever to occur in the continuing struggle against HIV/AIDS.

Noting that about half of all HIV infections worldwide now occurred among women, a representative of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said that men were a vital component of efforts to solve that problem.  There was a need to address attitudes of male dominance and female passivity in relationships, and to debunk male stereotypes celebrating a cavalier approach to sexual promiscuity. 

Furthering that argument, a World Health Organization (WHO) representative noted that many women had difficulties asking male partners to use condoms for fear of violence or projecting promiscuous.  In addition, men were often key decision-makers when it came to women’s health and welfare, especially in accessing health services and treatment.  The international community must continually develop innovative programmes examining health and social issues facing men and boys, including those affecting their relationships with women and girls.

Speakers also stressed the importance of equal participation by women in conflict prevention, negotiation and peace-building, as well as political decision-making, with many noting such continuing obstacles as restrictive cultural traditions, persistent stereotypes, and lack of sufficient access to reproductive health services as well as information and communication technologies.

Source: UN

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UN Study on Impact of Globalization Shows Uneven Results

The findings of a two-year study of the economic and social impact of globalization, commissioned by the International Labor Organization (ILO) of the United Nations, was released last week.  While recognizing that "the potential of the global market economy for good is immense," the report nonetheless showed that the opening up of borders, new trade agreements and the establishment of the World Trade Organization have failed to speed up the growth of the world's gross domestic product, which lags behind prior decades.

The gap between the rich and the poor has widened, with 6.2% (188 million) of the labor force still unemployed. Countries representing only 14% of the world population account for half the world's trade and foreign investment.  Most important, in the developing world, women have been harmed more than men due to globalization.  Women's traditional livelihoods as subsistence farmers or small producers have been undermined by foreign subsidized agriculture or foreign imports.  When seeking alternative occupations, women face cultural barriers

To expand the benefits of globalization, the study recommends: improved international governance; more transparency in trade laws, better protection for goods and people crossing borders, better enforcement of international labor standards – i.e. the right to organize and bargain collectively, the elimination of compulsory labor, the abolition of child labor and the ending of discrimination in employment.  (U.N. Report: "A Fair Globalization")

Source: GLOBEWOMEN NEWS ISSUE NO. XXX, FEBRUARY 27, 2004