Human Rights Watch Questions to Australian Political Parties Ahead of ...

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April 18, 2022

Human Rights Watch Questions to Australian Political Parties Ahead of May 2022 Election

To whom this may concern,

Human Rights Watch is an international nongovernmental organization that monitors and advocates for human rights in more than 100 countries. We have been working on human rights issues in Australia for more than a decade.

To ensure that human rights issues and concerns receive the attention they deserve, we are submitting the following list of 15 questions to the Australian Greens, the Australian Labor Party, and the Liberal-National Coalition.

The goal of the questionnaire is to give each of the campaigns the opportunity to provide Australian voters with the views of their candidate on matters concerning the protection and promotion of human rights in Australia and around the globe.

The questionnaire asks about climate change, First Nations people, transgender Australians, and asylum seeker policy and refugee intake, as well as several aspects of foreign policy.

We hope that you can complete this questionnaire in as much detail as possible to provide voters with your perspectives on these issues.

Please respond by Monday, May 2, 2022. Soon thereafter, we will publish the responses received.

Kindly address any questions and responses about this request to Sophie McNeill, Australia Researcher.

Sincerely,

Sophie McNeill Australia Researcher

AMSTERDAM ? BEIRUT ? BERLIN ? BRUSSELS ? CHICAGO ? GENEVA - GOMA ? JOHANNESBURG ? KIEV ? KINSHASA ? LONDON ? LOS ANGELES ? MOSCOW ? NAIROBI NEW YORK ? PARIS ? SAN FRANCISCO ? S?O PAULO ? SEOUL ? SILICON VALLEY ? STOCKHOLM ? SYDNEY ? TOKYO ? TORONTO ? WASHINGTON ? Z?RICH

Human Rights Watch Questions to Australian Political Parties Ahead of May 2022 Election

Domestic Policy

1. Should Australia's greenhouse gas emissions be regulated, and if so, to what levels?

2. Do you support a time-bound plan to phase out government subsidies for fossil fuels? Why or why not?

3. The age of criminal responsibility in Australia is 10 years old. Should it be raised, to what age, and do you intend to work with states to accomplish that?

4. What will you do to address the disproportionate numbers of First Nations people in Australian prisons and jails?

5. What will you do to protect transgender children in Australian schools from discrimination?

6. Australia ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) in 2017. What will you do to ensure the full implementation of the protocol, which allows for regular visits by independent international and domestic bodies to all places of detention?

Foreign Policy

7. What is your position on offshore processing of asylum seekers?

8. Australia will take in approximately 17,875 people under its Refugee and Humanitarian Program each year until 2025-26, including the additional places for Afghan nationals. Do you plan to increase or decrease that number, and to what level?

9. Australia adopted a Magnitsky-style sanctions law in 2021. What specific officials or countries in the Asia-Pacific region do you foresee applying that law to?

10. Throughout the Asia-Pacific region, governments from Vietnam to India have suppressed human rights defenders, journalists, and bloggers. What steps

should Australia take to promote the rights to freedom of expression, media freedom, and freedom of association throughout the region?

11. What steps will you take to promote accountability for war crimes and other atrocity crimes committed in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in February?

12. Do you support enacting legislation banning the importation of goods made with suspected forced labor from Xinjiang in China, similar to recent legislation passed in the United States?

13. The Brereton report, commissioned by the inspector-general of the Australian Defence Force, examined war crimes allegedly committed by the Australian Defence Force's Special Forces during the war in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016. Do you support compensation or other redress for Afghan victims of alleged war crimes and their families as recommended by the report?

14. Which international crimes do you consider to be taking place in the following situations and what action should Australia be taking in response to them?

a) Crimes against humanity or other atrocity crimes by the Chinese government against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in Xinjiang.

b) Crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution by the Israeli government against Palestinians.

c) Crimes against humanity or other atrocity crimes by the Myanmar junta against the Rohingya and other ethnic minority groups.

15. About 80 Australian nationals, including 60 women and children, are detained in camps and prisons in Northeast Syria as Islamic State (ISIS) suspects or their family members. What steps do you intend to take to address this situation, such as creating a pathway for their return and rehabilitation and appropriate criminal investigations?

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