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By MARK RILEY NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT NEW YORK Visiting the United Nations for the first time since the mandatory sentencing controversy began, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has said it was childish to suggest that Australia's attack on the UN committee system sent the wrong message to countries with poor human rights records. Mr Downer said the criticism levelled at the Federal Government by opponents of mandatory sentencing assumed that Australia was in the same category of human rights abusers as China, Burma and North Korea. "We should try to get this into some perspective ... Our attitude to a committee report that we consider is completely biased does not equate with that at all," he said after presenting Australia's submission to a UN conference reviewing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "I don't think anyone is condemning Australia for egregious breaches of human rights." Mr Downer ordered a review of Australia's involvement in the UN committee system after the UN Committee on Racial Discrimination levelled strong criticism at Australia's treatment of Aborigines, particularly through mandatory sentencing laws. Critics of the government's stand have accused it of attacking the committee rather than dealing with larger Aboriginal policy problems highlighted by the report. Mr Downer also said yesterday that Australia was likely to wait a few years before trying again to win a seat on the UN Security Council, which it failed to do in 1996. "We will want to (try again) at some stage in the future," he said, adding that Australia would "want to choose a time when we thought we were most likely to win". Australia's diplomatic influence is greatly restricted by not having a seat on the security council, which makes decisions on the most serious issues facing the UN. UN diplomats say that Australia's prospects of winning a two-year term on the council have been greatly enhanced by its regional leadership on the East Timor issue, but the peculiarities of the selection process will prevent it from capitalising on its enhanced standing for at least four years. Reprinted from The Age - 27/4/2000 |
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