The Travels of the
Techno-Freedom-Fighter

I saw on ABC online today that Simon Corbell was saying that "The real challenge here is for critics of the new prison project to now justify their position given this damning outline of issues by the Human Rights Commissioner and the fact that she pinpoints the inadequacy of the existing facilities as the cause of many of the problems." I’m not going to have a go about the prison its deeper than that.

Does Canberra our ‘City State’ :-) need to have a Human Rights Commissioner? What is wrong with HREOC? Or should I say what does the ACT Human Rights Commissioner add to the situations. I’m a big fan of Human rights protection but I can’t see why we have to duplicate every thing in the ACT to what they we Federal Institutions for, Even some states don’t have them. It would seem to me that it is just an other case of - to many big fish in a small fish bowl.

I believe that in order to meet our domestic and international defence obligations the Australian Defence Force must be stable, robust and highly skilled. Like many nations around the world, Australia is struggling to meet its defence force recruitment targets and to retain its most valuable asset - people.

To counter declining recruitment rates, the Government has embarked on flashy, targeted advertising campaigns, costing millions of dollars that does not work. The Government is relying on slick marketing, not real changes that will make a career in the ADF an attractive option for young Australians. The Australian Democrats believe that to make an ADF career a more attractive option, the Government must start looking after its Defence Force personnel properly.

After several Parliamentary and Government commissioned inquiries held over many years, Australia's military justice system has been revealed to be unable to respond quickly and appropriately to serious incidents or to treat the people it was meant to protect fairly and in line with the principles of natural justice.

I would work to eliminate all forms of bullying including sexual harassment and the deliberate targeting of injured or ill personnel continue to lobby the Government and to support changes to the military justice system in line with the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee's report The Effectiveness of Australia's Military Justice System.