Couran Cove Human Rights Violations

CALL TO ACTION!

David Crisafulli, State Member of Parliament representing Couran Cove is up for re-election, after a year and a half of human rights violations in his electorate, change is needed! The people deserve a representative who will fight for them. A new representative who wont refuse to introduce a bill to prevent such human rights violations.

Background

Couran Cove has been water, electricity, gas, and sewerage/sanitation deprived for more than a year. There are several allegations made as to the cause of this:

  1. Non-payment of body corporate fees by two non-resident investors (LM) and (SN) amounting to approximately 20 million dollars (amounting to more than 98% of total debts), leading to all services being cut off by one of those same investors (SN).
  2. One of these two investors (LM) signed over control of the services to the other (SN) via a service agreement when they obtained positions on power in the body corporate
  3. Services were cut off to normal residents while they remained operational for these 2 investors
  4. If LM and SN were to pay their debts there would be no problem.
  5. The body corporate owns the infrastructure (water, electricity, etc)
  6. SN refuses to allow the body corporate or residents to operate the infrastructure at their own expense until the the dispute is resolved

Why is this a human rights violation?

The United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) defines many basic human rights. Among these are Article 11, the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living, and Article 12 right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

ICESCR General Comment 15 clarifies the right to water.

Unambiguously, GC15 states:

Under no circumstances shall an individual be deprived of the minimum essential level of water.

What is the minimum essential level of water?

The Assembly recognized the right of every human being to have access to enough water for personal and domestic uses, meaning between 50 and 100 litres of water per person per day. The water must be safe, acceptable and affordable. The water costs should not exceed 3 per cent of household income. Moreover, the water source has to be within 1,000 metres of the home and collection time should not exceed 30 minutes. (Source: United Nations)

Back to GC15:

In order to achieve an an adequate standard of living, and attain the highest standard of physical and mental health, it is required that humans have available to them sufficient water to fulfil functions including drinking, personal sanitation, washing of clothes, food preparation, personal and household hygiene. The water must also be accessible both physically and economically.

It explains the Obligation to protect the human right to water:

Obligations to Protect

The obligation to protect requires State parties to prevent third parties from interfering in any way with the enjoyment of the right to water. Third parties include individuals, groups, corporations and other entities as well as agents acting under their authority. The obligation includes, inter alia, adopting the necessary and effective legislative and other measures to restrain, for example, third parties from denying equal access to adequate water; and polluting and inequitably extracting from water resources, including natural sources, wells and other water distribution systems.

Where water services (such as piped water networks, water tankers, access to rivers and wells) are operated or controlled by third parties, States parties must prevent them from compromising equal, affordable, and physical access to sufficient, safe and acceptable water. To prevent such abuses an effective regulatory system must be established, in conformity with the Covenant and this General Comment, which includes independent monitoring, genuine public participation and imposition of penalties for non-compliance.

ICESCR GC 4, The Right to Adequate Housing, describes the need for Availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure.

(b) Availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure. An adequate house must contain certain facilities essential for health, security, comfort and nutrition. All beneficiaries of the right to adequate housing should have sustainable access to natural and common resources, safe drinking water, energy for cooking, heating and lighting, sanitation and washing facilities, means of food storage, refuse disposal, site drainage and emergency services;

Why do international laws affect Australia?

Australia ratified The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) which went into force in 1976. As explained by DFAT: "by ratifying a treaty a country voluntarily accepts legal obligations under international law".

Australia has also recognises General Comment 15:


Note: Both of these parties have refused to help.

Who are the responsible government representatives?

Anthony Albanese Prime Minister of Australia
Mark Dreyfus Federal Attorney-General
Yvette D'Ath MP State Attorney-General
David Crisafulli State Member of Parliament
Leader of the Opposition
Tom Tate Local Mayor

Are there no protections?

The Energy and Water Ombudsman Queensland (EWOQ) website states: If you're experiencing financial hardship and are in debt with your water bills, your water provider cannot disconnect your water supply. However, they can severely restrict your water flow. Unfortunately when reaching out to the EWOQ we are told that these protections do not apply to the residents of Couran Cove and there's nothing they can do.

We have the Water Supply (Safety and Reliability) Act 2008 (Qld)

Water Supply (Safety and Reliability) Act 2008 (Qld) s 169 (similar to ICESCR GC15 s56 "Under no circumstances shall an individual be deprived of the minimum essential level of water") states:

(2) The service provider may reduce the water supply to the premises to the minimum level necessary for the health and sanitation purposes of the owner or occupier.
(3) However, the service provider must not completely shut off the water supply to the premises.

Water Supply (Safety and Reliability) Act 2008 (Qld) s 530, s 531, and s 532 provide the government powers to temporarily take control of water and sewerage infrastructure if they stop being operated. This fulfils should fulfil the obligation to protect.

Unfortunately, Schedule 3 Dictionary creates some inconsistencies in the definitions of water service provider, water service, sewerage service, and sewerage service provider, which disclude residences of a body corporate not using a particular type of registered provider. A rather clear oversight as this definition is shared with many other sections of the document.

For chapter 2, part 3, the term does not include a service supplied by infrastructure, if—
  (a) the infrastructure is used solely for mining purposes; or
  (b) the service is used only by—
    (i) the owner of the infrastructure or the owner’s guests or employees including, for example, guests at a resort; or
    (ii) if the owner of the infrastructure is a body corporate for a community titles scheme, however described, established under an Act—the occupants of lots in the scheme.

This would make sense for almost all of the 400 pages of legislation in this document. However, it would be unconscionable for the intent of the legislation to provide human rights protects to all Queenslanders other than a likely fraction of a percent of residents. All contacted members of parliament refuse to take action on this issue. The Prime Minister refuses to even discuss these human rights violations.






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