They are fast!
You can view my initial complaint here
Karen from www.humanrights.gov.au responded, quickly I might add.
Sadly her response is a palm off. Not her fault, but still…
Here it is:
Dear Andrew
The laws we administer only allow us to deal with complaints on the basis of sexual preference in the area of employment. Unfortunately we cant just change our laws to expand their coverage as that is a matter for parliament. We are unable to deal with your complaint because it is not within our jurisdiction to accept complaints not covered by our laws.
If you wish to complain about advertising you may wish to contact the Australian Communications and Media Authority who handle complaints about advertising. The contact details for ACMA are available on its website at www.acma.gov.au.
Karen Toohey
Director, Complaint Handling Section
Australian Human Rights Commission
Level 8 Piccadilly Tower, 133 Castlereagh St, Sydney NSW 2000
GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001
T +61 2 9284 9746 F +61 2 9284 9689
E karen.toohey@humanrights.gov.au W www.humanrights.gov.au
My favourite part is the quote at the end: “Human rights: everyone, everywhere, everyday”
Well, no so much Everyone Karen. Maybe you should update your quote to be:
Human Rights: Everyone, Everyone except Gay People, Everywhere, Everday.
So, Tanya Plibersek who told me that the Rudd government has wiped clean all of the human rights discrepancies was either not telling me the truth, or she was wrong.
Time to send her a letter.
18/12/2008 Permalink
My god no wonder there are people out there that hate gays and anything to do with us. With people like you creating a storm in a teacup about such irrelevant little things like a TV commercial – for christ’s sake get a sense of humour.
Yes, I am gay and proud of it, but I do not need people like you giving more people ammunition to go out and “poofter bash” and all the other abhorrent things that happen to innocents like us, trying to just go about our lives peacefully.
If you want your fifteen minutes of fame, please do it in a way that doesn’t affect the majority of us and as I said before “get a sense of humour !”
16/12/2008 Permalink
Andrew,
You’re wrong in blaming the Australian Human Rights Commission for this. Federal anti-discrimination laws in Australia currently only protect against sexual orientation in employment. While this may be discriminatory, it is now the AHRC’s fault, but rather the Parliament’s fault, as Karen Toohey rightly pointed out. A federal agency is essentially a bureaucracy, meaning it is obliged to respect the content of the law. It can’t simply make up new law as it chooses.
The Rudd Government stated its intention to introduce a more comprehensive anti-discrimination law covering sexual orientation and gender identity in the next year. This would equalise the ground of sexual orientation with that of race and sex.
Please also note that there are state laws which cover a wider range of discrimination grounds. In New South Wales, for example, sexual orientation discrimination is illegal not only in employment, but also in the provision of goods and services, education, vilification, etc. This is equal to provisions relating to race, sex and religion. Similar laws are present in nearly all Australian states. Thus, you can make a complaint to the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board if you feel you have been discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. The link is http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/ADB
But please, explore your options more deeply before kicking up a stink about this. Unfairly blaming the AHRC, an organisation which played a hugely beneficial role in gay law reform, will do nothing to advance your cause or the cause of LGBT equality more generally. Indeed, it trivialises more serious forms of discrimination against LGBT people.