Does the Human Rights Commission treat some groups more equally than others?

What is striking about the Sex Commissioner's priorities is the preoccupation with women's' issues (and the interests of those caring for children) to the point where we seem to be looking at a partisan agenda. Accompanying this is a complete lack of recognition of any areas where men and people without children are disadvantaged, and insufficient emphasis on gender neutral objectives. There is also no recognition that providing the Commissioner's comprehensive wish list may increase the cost of employing women to the point where the measures themselves actually provide an incentive for employers to discriminate against some groups of women.

I would have thought that some of the following areas of non-female specific disadvantage might have deserved consideration in the list of priorities:

• The issue of whether calls to enhance the conditions of service for working parents discriminates indirectly against those with no young children. [It is illegal to pay married men or married women more than singles or vice versa. Proliferating special benefit provisions for working parents mean that childless workers (often singles) or those with grown-up children effectively are on a less valuable salary package.]
• The issue of whether pension schemes, that don't have separate actuarially-based pension entitlements for male and female members, discriminate against males?
• The issue that singles and those without children often face inferior superannuation death benefits because the part-pensions that commonly flow on to surviving spouses and children are unavailable to the heirs of single childless people.
• Unequal treatment of men in matters related to child custody (and family law administration generally)
• Issues related to poorer performance of boys in education,
• Much higher rates of male imprisonment and suicide [If high relative rates of Indigenous (to non-Indigenous) imprisonment and suicide are a valid and high profile equity issue, what about the higher male relative to female rate?]
• The lower public emphasis on men's health despite their shorter life spans.
• The tendency in (especially government) advertising to avoid showing women in a negative role so that more commonly males are cast in such roles.
• Rather than targeting only "violence against women", the reference should be to domestic violence (including violence by female, and by same-sex partners.)
• The continuing inequality in age pension eligibility ages (which will finally become the same in 2014 after a very long phase in period). [In contrast, measures to address discrimination against women (e.g. equal pay) generally had instant legal effect.]

Discrimination is not a simple issue encompassing only cases where traditional disadvantaged groups are treated unfairly because of prejudice. While such cases may well still be in the majority, discrimination can and does cut in many complex ways.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has developed an image problem, both because governments have generally appointed specialist commissioners from amongst traditional disadvantaged/victim groups (which risks having judges in their own cause), and because Commissioners themselves have generally placed priority on dealing with traditional stereotyped forms of discrimination. The result is that there is some community feeling that the Commission is an indulgence to identified minority groups, and that its concern for such groups at times reflects partisanship rather than mere passion for equity.