Edmund Rice Centre's eNewsletter

ERN - People & Places

ERC In Touch

Australia

All Newsletters

ERC In Touch

ERC Sydney

NSW Region

With the election campaign now at fever pitch,
all at the Centre have been especially busy these past weeks.

ERC is focusing our input within the heightened national debate on the three key areas of our field of expertise:

immigration policy relating to asylum seekers: with particular focus based on our ongoing deportations research, and on our knowledge of the human rights situations in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan;
climate change policy: with an emphasis on calling Australia to not forget the human face of those in low lying Pacific Island communities who, through sea encroachments, are bearing the greatest cost of our energy consumption; and
policy to promote indigenous sovereignty and equity: the area which has received a disappointingly low level of constructive attention within the campaign to date.

Keep an eye out for ERC fact-sheets to be released in the next few days, offering concise analysis within these three key policy areas. We'll send out a brief notice to InTouch subscribers when these three JustComment specials are available for downloading.

As sustenance for this effort - which so many InTouch subscribers are themselves similarly engaged in nation-wide - we present this week a short reflection below - offering us all a basis upon which to stay positive.

Lastly, don't forget to email all your family, friends and colleagues to attend Walk Against Warming events around the nation this Sunday, 15th August 2010 - more details below or at www.walkagainstwarming.org

Two steps forward but three steps back? Chase away those election blues!
In the current electoral process, ERC staff have been working to raise the priority placed upon key human rights issues: immigration policy relating to asylum seekers; climate change policy; and policy to promote Indigenous sovereignty and equity. For these issues both major parties appear to offer little to raise the nation's spirit. Rather, they continue in a race to the bottom, with few signs of hope in the policies that either side proposes to pursue in government.

ERC Fair Trade: keeping an eye on the ball

An ERC research project is currently examining the exploitation of workers in developing countries by the sports-ball stitching industry, and is demonstrating that modification of consumer purchasing habits - based on knowledge of the human rights issues involved and increasing awareness of fair-trade alternatives - can make a real difference

Grass-roots action: getting Fair Trade sports balls into our schools

In Brisbane, a local social justice group is overcoming the inertia that it has identified in getting local secondary schools to move to ethical purchasing practices for the schools' sports balls.

It was through the work of Danny Long of ERC's Fair Trade Program that Karin Chai of the Ecumenical Social Justice Group (ESJG) in Brisbane's western suburbs became aware of efforts in Australia to promote use of ethically manufactured sports balls.