Rights fighter hits out

by John Cokley

Racial discrimination against Indigenous people goes on "24/7" — 24 hours 
a day, seven days a week — in Australia, says outgoing Queensland Anti-
Discrimination Commissioner, Karen Walters. "The gravity of this 
discrimination against Indigenous people on a daily basis is one of the 
most disappointing things I have seen", said Ms Walters, 39.

"Australia is absolutely a racist community and there is never a day goes 
by when I don't feel ashamed at what's happening here."

"It is so sad."

Ms Walters, whose five-year contract as Commissioner ends on September 4, 
says she thinks Australia is headed straight back to the days of the White 
Australia Policy of the 1950s and 1960s.

"Part of the problem is in what this current Federal Government is doing 
about refugees", she says.

"I mean, these are desperate people who are coming here — desperate people 
who are not thinking of invading us — and yet we offer them vilification, 
mandatory detention and inadequate health care."

"The scariest thing about all this is that our treatment of new arrivals is 
going to mean that in 20 years we're going to have a divided community 
because, inevitably, some of the people who are arriving now will be 
granted refugee status and stay", she says.

"They will take with them into the community deep-seated, fractured and 
embittered feelings about Australia and their treatment when they arrived 
here.

Ms Walters probably has more authority to comment on discrimination than 
anyone else.

In the late 1980s she worked on anti-discrimination policy in the former 
Department of Territories in Canberra and then the Australian Capital 
Territory Attorney-General's Department.

She worked in the Queensland Justice Department on human rights and on an 
inquiry into the Bill of Rights for the State, still not implemented.

And in 1996, when the newly elected Federal Coalition Government moved to 
strip funds from the Human Rights Commission, Ms Walters took on the big 
job of establishing the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission and was 
appointed Commissioner in September 1997.

Discrimination on rise

"Then (1996) it was a time for the waves of (Pauline) Hansonist racial 
conservatism were strong, and the business communities saw human rights as 
being pro-complainant", Ms Walters said.

Complaints were running at a rate of 1100 a year then and in the years 
since that number has doubled to 2200 a year.

The Commission now handles complaints about discrimination in a sorry list 
of areas: race, gender, age, political beliefs, union activity, sexual 
preference, religion, disability, marital status, pregnancy, and breast-
feeding.

"We even have people being discriminated against for being associated with 
members of these groups", she said.

Under Ms Walters' leadership, the Commission launched an anti-
discrimination training program for businesses.

And it has established another program for Indigenous people called 
"Tracking Your Rights" which sets out clearly and simply the rights of 
people in Queensland from an Indigenous point of view.

The Commission has fought hard and won several landmark cases, such as 
$11,000 payouts to each of six senior Indigenous community councillors who 
were discriminated against in 2000 by Jupiter's Casino on the Gold Coast.

One person received $165,000 in compensation from Queensland Rail for age 
discrimination.

Other age discrimination payouts have included amounts of $80,000 and 
$50,000.

Other successes have not involved money but have been satisfying as well, 
Ms Walters says.

Such as the time a Muslim woman complained that she had been asked to 
remove her head dress before she entered a financial institutions building: 
The mediated result was that employees attended an afternoon tea with the 
woman and her Muslim friends to learn more about their culture.

And such as another time when an Indigenous stockman discovered some white 
locals using a CB-radio channel for racist jokes. The mediated result was 
that the whites were brought to realise the hurt and pain they had been 
causing.

"When I first went to Thursday Island, the locals didn't even know there 
was such a thing as anti-discrimination law in Queensland," she said. (In 
fact, the Anti-Discrimination Act was passed in 1991.)

Ms Walters approached her new job with a list of three things to 
accomplish.

"First, I took on the job with the aim of bedding down the Commission so 
that no matter what happened in the future it would still be there and 
working", she said.

"Secondly, I set out to relocate the Commission from the State Law Building 
(known as the 'Batman Building' on the corner of Ann and George streets, 
Brisbane) because most of our clients at the Commission — Indigenous 
people and gays felt uncomfortable even coming into the building. So we 
moved out to Milton in 2000.

"And thirdly, I was determined to expand our operations to include racial 
and religious vilification and the State legislation was amended in July 
2001."

Karen Walters, who can practice as a barrister in New South Wales or 
Queensland, plans to take a break to attend to family matters after she 
steps down in September.

After that, she plans to focus on Indigenous rights issues, possibly with a 
view to launching an Indigenous rights advocacy centre.

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August 2002 edition Koori Mail (Abridged)