All people deserve equal access to human rights.

Australia’s nurses and midwives want the Australian government to provide social justice and human rights equally to all people in the Australian community.

1. Violence against Women

In Australia domestic violence is the greatest cause of illness and ill health in women between the ages of 15 and 44. Every week one woman dies at the hands of someone she knows.

The financial cost of physical and sexual violence against women in Australia runs into billions of dollars and the ongoing social and health costs impacting women’s lives are immeasurable.

Nursing in Australia, primarily a female occupation is still identified as at high risk of workplace violence. Research shows large numbers of nurses are regularly exposed to verbal and physical violence.

The ANF calls on the Australian Government to address the violence nurses experience through the funding of a national study to develop strategies to reduce the incidence of violence and aggression toward nurses in the workplace.

For further information on accessing support for those experiencing violence: (24 hour crisis support).

For further information on the federal government’s national strategy against violence and sexual assault click here.

For further information

Take ACTION:
There is always something you can do:

2. Asylum Seeker and Refugee Health

All asylum seekers in Australia must be treated with dignity and have equal access to the human rights that Australian citizens take for granted. All people seeking asylum, whatever their method of arriving in Australia are within their rights to do so.

The Australian government’s decision to bring an end to the ‘Pacific Solution’ and to abolish Temporary Protection Visas is a welcome change to Australian policy.

Long term detention has significant impact on an individual’s physical and psychological health and contravenes their human rights. The ANF would like further commitment from the Australian Government to end all offshore and indefinite detention of asylum seekers, and to establish a system that prevents any child from experiencing detention in Australia.

For further information:

Take ACTION:
There is always something you can do:

3. Charter of Human Rights

The Australian Nursing Federation supports the move to develop a Human Rights Act or Charter. Developing a national law protecting human rights has the potential to vastly improve human rights protection in Australia.

We need to protect Human Rights in Australia in order to prevent human rights abuses that are already occurring here:

All people deserve access to human rights, the right to freedom of speech, to quality health care, to education, clean and secure housing, and personal safety. This is fundamental to mental and physical health and wellbeing.

For further information

Australian Human Rights Group

The Australian Human Rights Group (AHRG) is a network of organisations and individuals committed to enhancing our legislative protection of human rights by supporting a national Human Rights Act.

4. Don't Deal with Burma campaign

The ANF support s the work of Burma Campaign Australia.

"Don't Deal with Burma" is a national campaign which was launched in September 2009, aimed at cutting all Australian support to the Burmese military dictatorship.

The human rights and humanitarian crisis in Eastern Burma is one of the worst in the world. In the past year 66,000 civilians have been forced from their homes because of attacks by the Burmese Army. Around half a million people are internally displaced, while hundreds of thousands are in refugee camps in Thailand, or have been resettled in other countries. More than 3,200 villages have been destroyed in the past 12 years.

For further information and to support the campaign, please visit the Burma Campaign Australia website

Campaign Update - January 13th 2010

Twinza Oil
 Twinza Oil is helping fund Burma’s military dictatorship and their actions, including the systematic violation of human rights. Their project alone could earn the MOGE an estimated US$2.5 billion. Within the next 12 months Twinza Oil expects to pay the military-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise $11.6 million for a licensing fee to continue operations in Burma. In late 2009 it came to light that Twinza Oil was considering listing on the stock exchange as a way to raise funds.

Calls on the Australian government to place the MOGE on Australian financial sanction list and to investigate Australian companies’ business interests in Burma are yet to be answered.

Take action to stop Twinza Oil
Join the Don’t Deal with Burma campaign. Ask Australia’s Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to investigate Australian companies’ business interests in Burma and introduce targeted trade and investment sanctions against Burma.

Click here to add your name to the petition and please forward this online petition to your members.

Barrett Communications – Burmese army tunes into Australian technology
Barrett Communications, an Australian company based in Perth, manufactures long distance high frequency communication equipment that are being used by the Burmese military. The radios use frequency-hopping software that switches messages rapidly between about 500 frequencies, making them hard to intercept and unscramble except by the most sophisticated intelligence agencies such as the US National Security Agency or Australia's Defence Signals Directorate. The radio sets have been deployed in recent months at the Burmese Army's headquarters in the capital, Naypyidaw, and at the army's central, eastern and north-eastern commands involved in long-running campaigns against Shan and other insurgent forces.

BCA has written to the Foreign Minister and all federal parliamentarians urging them to investigate the export of these radios to Burma and for Australia to strengthen its arms embargo to ensure that equipment that has military capabilities is not being sold to Burma.

Campaign Successes
Since the campaign’s launch a number of companies have committed to not dealing with Burma and ensuring they don’t have investments in Burma. These include:
• Millers - Speciality Fashion Group
• Sustainable Living Fabrics
The Commonwealth Bank has also guaranteed that it does not have investments in Burma.

5. Medical Association for Prevention of War

The ANF supports the work of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) (MAPW). The MAPW works for the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction and the prevention of armed conflict. We promote peace through research, advocacy, peace education and partnerships. Please use our many resources on nuclear weapons, power and waste, peace and conflicts.

Our professional not-for-profit organisation has branches across Australia, and works globally through the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Please consider joining us, or supporting our work with a donation.

For further information

Remembering Hiroshima & Nagasaki Events

Organised by Japanese for Peace
We are pleased to announce following two events to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Screening of a documentary film
Flashes of Hope: Hibakusha Travelling the World
Director: Erika Bagnarello
Copyright©2009, Produced by Peace Boat/Costa Rica Filmworks
When: Thursday, 22nd of July 2010 6:30~8:00
Where: Trades Hall (New Council Chambers)
54 Victoria Street,
Carlton South (Cnr Lygon & Victoria Streets)
Entry: $5

This film follows the journey of 100 Hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors, around the world on a cruise ship called the PEACE BOAT sharing their testimonies about their experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…

Guest Speaker: Tim Wright representing iCAN (International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons) talks about the NPT Review Conference 2010 held in New York

Hiroshima & Nagasaki Memorial Concert
Sunday 8th August 2010, 3:00 – 5:00 pm
Village Roadshow Theatrette @ State Library of Victoria, Melbourne
Tickets at door: $15/$10 conc.

Warm up a cold wintery Sunday at a concert for peace
Sixty-five years after the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear blast, “Japanese for Peace” will bring together a diverse array of inspiring musicians, speakers and citizens of the world in a concert to celebrate peace and enable us to imagine a world without nuclear threat.

Performers: Liz Frencham - singer/songwriter, Anne Norman - shakuhachi, Wadaiko Rindo - Japanese drums…. and more
Speaker: Dave Sweeney - Australian Conservation Foundation

Supported by Victorian Multicultural Commission.
Concert proceeds to be donated to charity organisation.

For more information, contact info@jfp.org.au or visit our website www.jfp.org.au

6. Environment and Health

Human health and the environment are inextricably linked, and nurses are already experiencing first hand the impact of climate change on the health and well being of Australians. The recent high temperatures and drought conditions experienced across the country and internationally are impacting on food production and the physical and psychological health of many people.

The ANF is calling on the Australian government to continue working towards solutions to the problems impacting on the environmental health of our planet, such as increasing our capacity to produce energy through renewable technologies thereby reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and managing our water resources responsibly.

The ANF is concerned that the 5% target to cut Australia’s carbon pollution, set by the Australian government is not enough and maintains that the health of the nation is relying on swift action.

The ANF joins the international community in calling on the Australian government to set stronger renewable energy targets for 2020.

For further information

Take ACTION:
There is always something you can do:

7. International Health:

Around the world, people are impacted by poverty and injustice. Poverty and conflict have a profoundly negative effect on an individual’s access to basic human rights, and as a result their health and well being.

The Australian Nursing Federation says:

For further information