We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 September 2019
The 1940s are remembered as the birthplace of modern human rights, justifying wartime needs for regimentation and framing the utopian moment of the postwar years. The Catholic Church proved an early partisan of universal human rights in Australia, with the inauguration of the annual Catholic Social Justice Statement in 1940 dubbed a declaration of “fundamental human rights”. The statement and those that followed allowed the Church to eek out a place in the postwar world. At the same time, Australia's Labor Party sought a greater centralisation of state power to ensure that Australians could enjoy the "freedom from fear and want" the Atlantic Charter promised. The 1944 Powers Referendum saw the need for social and economic rights face off against personal liberties in a strenuous debate which informed Australia's approach to negotiating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Decade’s end saw Chinese and Malaysian seamen campaign alongside their white Australian wives for their “human rights”, only to find a less-than-receptive ear from a government and judiciary who, while supportive of the Universal Declaration in the abstract, wanted to protect domestic jurisdiction at all costs
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
