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e-newsletter 7 December 2010
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- Category: News Archive
- Published on Tuesday, 07 December 2010 14:09
- Written by Jennifer
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UnitingJustice e-news 7 December 2010
Human Rights Day 10 December
Each year, United Nations Human Rights Day is celebrated on the 10th of December. It commemorates the day in 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
UnitingJustice has a suite of fact sheets on a range of human rights issues and human rights worship resources available on our website to help Uniting Church members mark the day. These are available here on our website.
The Uniting Church helping to get children out of detention
On 18 October this year the Minister for Immigration, Chris Bowen, announced that unaccompanied children and vulnerable families in immigration detention would be released into community detention. Some will be released as early as Christmas, with the majority being placed by June next year. He committed the Government to working with churches and community service agencies to source housing and provide appropriate support services.
The Uniting Church has released this statement further outlining our involvement in this process to date.
Acknowledging Indigenous people in the Australian Constitution
In early November, the Government announced that it would begin a process of national discussion on recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution.
The National Assembly and Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress issued a joint statement welcoming this announcement, reflecting on the Church’s own journey to the official recognition of Aboriginal and Islander people as the First Peoples of Australia in our constitution. You can read that press release here.
The Assembly will look to engage in the public discussion as the expert panel set up by the Government commences its work.
Lobbying meetings in the new Parliament
UnitingJustice recently headed to Canberra for a day of meetings with politicians at Parliament House. We met with a number of new MPs to introduce the advocacy work of the Uniting Church and UnitingJustice in particular.
The President of the Church, Rev. Alistair Macrae, joined us for a meeting with Chris Bowen, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. This was our first meeting with Mr Bowen since he took up this portfolio area, and at the meeting we introduced the Uniting Church’s long history of involvement in caring for asylum seekers in detention and the community and our most pressing concerns in relation to government policy.
Signing off...
In our last e-news of the year, UnitingJustice would like to wish all our friends a very blessed Christmas and best wishes for the year ahead. We offer our sincerest thanks for all of your support for and interest in our work during 2010 and look forward to carrying on our mission throughout 2011.