Seminar On Human Rights

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31365, 10 May 1967, Page 20

Seminar On Human Rights

The concept of human rights contained in the United Nations declaration was more fully observed in the life of the people of New Zealand than in life in any other country he knew of said the Minister of Broadcasting (Mr Adams-Schneider) in Christchurch yesterday.

Opening a four-day United Nations seminar on human rights at Sumner for 145 senior pupils from secondary schools throughout New Zealand, Mr Adams-Schneider said that this pride of achievement was itself a warning of complacency.

Mr Adams-Schneider was deputising for the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Marshall). The price of liberty, he said, was eternal vigilance. There was also a need to be watchful, to be constructively critical of ourselves and our institutions and to ask probing questions. “We are proud of our race relations between Maori and European, but are we doing all that we can or need to do in this? Are our legal remedies for injustice adequate or do we need to reinforce or extend some of the steps taken, such as the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. Do our radio, television and press give enough scope to a balanced treatment of controversial topics?”

He asked if the critics of established policies for their part acted with the respect for the rights of others that

they should display; were the dissenters who exercised their rights to oppose and object doing so with dueregard to the rights of others?

“When does a restriction on one man’s freedom become justified in order to protect or promote another man's welfare? Are our social pressures towards conformity a form of restriction on people’s rights and freedoms? These and many more questions he told the students to ask now and in the years ahead. Mr Adams-Schneider said thought should also be given to one’s responsibilities as well as to one’s rights. “It is perhaps one of the least attractive aspects of our welfare state in New Zealand that it tends to create rights and privileges without at the same time encouraging the

acceptance of duties and responsibilities.” He said that the essence of the full realisation of human rights was not only the rule of law but the spirit of charity. “If our country is to remain a leader in the preservation and promotion of human rights we must not be so busy maintaining our rights that we lose the spirit of service.” “Our welfare society needs the spirit of service to make it a true community where rights and duties are alike accepted. For the future we must recognise that human rights are never finally and completely assured. Situations alter and new problems arise. Old solutions become irrelevant and old problems become transformed,” he said. The human rights problem was posed at all levels —inter-

national, regional, national, communal, family and individual. Advances at the international level were only real when implemented at the national level in relation to specific individuals.

Mr Adams-Schneider said the law by itself could not assure the enjoyment and exercise of human rights, nor could the Government. “A rational, active, public opinion, conscious of the importance of human rights and duties and of the problems in the way of their fulfilment can do as much or more,” he said. Mr J. Belich, vice-president of the United Nations Association of New Zealand, which sponsored the seminar, welcomed students and guests. The seminar director (Mrs D. Grant) expressed the hope that all would find the seminar stimulating and interesting and that the students would return enthusiastic to their schools where they might form United Nations branches. Mr J. G. Male, a special adviser, who planned the fourday seminar programme outlined the tasks which the United Nations had set itself in the field of human rights during which he warned against the danger of many who thought of human rights in the concept of the United Nations as only a distant technical exercise. He also described how in the last 20 years the preoccupation with human rights had pervaded many of the activities of the world organisation. The photograph shows some of those attending the seminar.