Democrats will attempt to create Peace Commission

The Australian Democrats are planning to introduce a private members bill (the Peace and Non-Violence Commission Act 2007).  In many ways this is more far-reaching and significant than their attempt to get the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill 2006 through – a bill unfortunately rejected, despite the many submissions in its favor.

The reason this bill is so important (from the draft I’ve read) is that it sets out to create the conditions that allow peace to develop, rather than attempt to control any belligerent or inhumane activities, and has a large educational component.

The draft bill’s full name is A Bill for an Act to establish a Commission for peace and non-violence, and for related purposes and aims at the following:

• Establish the Peace and Non-Violence Commission as an independent statutory body to promote throughout the community the pursuit of peace and non-violence as an objective and responsibility of national government
• Align Commonwealth government activity with United Nations policy in the promotion of peace
• Publicise Australia’s obligations under international humanitarian law.

It’s a pity there are too few recent successes of Australia’s promotion of international humanitarian law.  If there were, there’d be much less chance of us being a terrorist target: after all, even Bin Laden said just before the Iraq war that moslems should not attack places like the Nordic countries.

The draft seeks not only to promote international peace, but also domestic conflict between groups in Australia.  Importantly, it has a strong educational agenda for schools, and a research component to look for new ways of developing a civil Australia, and a civil world.

Another important part is the promotion of economic rights, not just the prevention of frank violence.

The draft proposal divides up the Commission into a number of separate offices:

• Peace Education and Training
• Domestic Peace Activities
• International Peace Activities
• Technology for Peace
• Arms Control and Disarmament
• Peaceful Coexistence and Non-Violent Conflict Resolution
• Human Rights and Economic Rights

In the hope of increasing the chance of getting the bill through, while it aims to be binding on the government, it precludes the possibility of prosecution.  It’s a pity that prosecution is not an option, but our current executive is as likely to allow this as the proposal to make lies by politicians subject to prosecution.

I urge everyone to keep an eye out for this bill when it is referred to committee, and send in your own submission in its support.

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See also:

• How-To make a submission
• Current parliamentary inquiries
• this blog’s page on parliamentary submissions
• Area to prepare for public submissions to the peace commission bill

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