Australia backs UN on indigenous rights

The Rudd government will officially support a UN declaration on indigenous rights
which the previous Howard government voted against in 2007.
Sixteen months after taking power, Labor will make good its election promise to
endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
But the Opposition says ratifying the UN Declaration would have far-reaching
consequences if one racial group was allowed exemptions from Australian law.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin will make the statement of support at
Parliament House in Canberra on Friday, April 3.
But she's been quick to stress it won't bestow additional rights on Aboriginal
Australians.
"We want indigenous Australians to be partners in efforts to close the gap," Ms
Macklin said in a statement.
"For this to happen, we must recognise the unique place of indigenous people in
Australia.
"This declaration is not legally binding and will not affect Australian laws."
The minister said the change of position was an important symbolic step for building
trust and "resetting" black and white relations in Australia.
The move follows the historic apology to the stolen generations in February last year.
The declaration sets out the rights of the world's estimated 370 million indigenous
people.
Earlier this month, human rights group Amnesty International slammed Labor for
failing to support the declaration in its first year in office.
Aboriginal leaders have also criticised the delay.
Australia was one of just four countries to vote against the declaration when the
UN's General Assembly adopted it in September 2007, along with the United States,
New Zealand and Canada.
The former Howard government opposed the declaration on the grounds it elevated
customary law above national law.
Opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis said the UN document was deeply
flawed, and supporting it would have unforeseen and far-reaching consequences for
Australian law.
"Of most concern is that the declaration seeks to establish special sectoral
exemptions for one section of the community to the exclusion of others," he said.
"There is no room in Australia for different rights attaching to different citizens,
differentiated only by race."
Australian of the Year Mick Dodson told AAP he wouldn't comment until he'd seen the
actual statement of support.
Earlier this month the Aboriginal academic expressed concern that Labor's
endorsement could be watered down by "riders, qualifications or explanatory
statements".
Prof Dodson has previously stated the commonwealth's intervention into remote
communities in the Northern Territory breaches many of the declaration's 46
articles.