What is advocacy?

Advocacy is representing people who can't act on their own behalf. This e-book looks at advocating for individuals

People need advocates for various reasons:

• Their disability makes them physically or mentally unable to advocate for themselves.
• They live to far away from decision-making centres.
• They are unaware of their rights.
• They don't speak English.
• They feel powerless.

The last of these is perhaps one of the most difficult to understand.

Powerlessness

A mindset of powerlessness is most difficult to understand if you aren't powerless. It leads people to accept an unfair lot in life.

The symptoms of powerlessness include:

• People feel like victims. ("It's not fair but we can't do anything about it.")
• People believe that they cannot influence "the system", which usually means that they don't know how decisions are made and implemented. ("The politicians and bureaucrats don't listen to us." "There's nothing we can do about it." )
• People accept their powerlessness, and might even believe it should not change. That is, they become acculturated to their position. ("Everybody in our ethnic group is a slave. Always has been, always will be. We couldn't be anything else.")
• People are controlled by others who deprive them of rights ("The old men make all the decisions. We women just do as we are told.)
• People have no knowledge of their rights. Or they might know their rights but have no way of getting them.

Powerlessness is only perceived in some cultures; people simply need to be taught their rights and their role in the decision-making system.

But powerlessness is real in some cultures, where marginalized people are deliberately kept in place by government law, bureaucrats, large companies, traditional law, or social stigma.

Where do "rights" come from?

Let's put aside the philosophical background, and stick to the matter at hand. Some examples of basic rights and needs are:

• freedom of choice
• access to services
• personal safety and security
• access to right protections and legal remedies

Rights derive from:

• International law, such as treaties and UN Charters.
• The constitutions of the Commonwealth and the States.
• Laws made at federal, state/territory, or local government levels.
• Regulations made at federal, state/territory, or local government levels.
• Court decisions
• Decisions of various tribunal
• Official government policy statements
• Natural justice
• Government watchdog agencies, e,g. ombudsmen, boards of oversight.

Unlike most countries, Australia does not have a bill of rights for its citizens.

So what can you do with these kinds of laws to get people their rights?

• International laws tend to be fundamental and non-specific, so they generally aren't all that much use and don't hold a lot of promise. Still, they can be useful in some cases.
• Laws are often subject to interpretation and you should know what they say and what they are interpreted to mean.
• Regulations are documents saying how laws are to be implemented. Some Acts authorize the overseeing Minister to issue regulations as long as they are consistent with the Act. They are easy to challenge if they are inconsistent with an Act.
• The ATO has a system of private and public rulings. It is easy and free to get a private ruling. Public rulings are easy to challenge if they are inconsistent with an Act. But the ATO likes money and now takes major cases as far as the High Court.
• Court decisions may be very useful. Courts  interpret laws, and can even strike down a law if they find it is illegal. The decisions of higher courts are are binding on lower courts, and there is also a body of case law.
• Tribunal decisions usually only apply to individual cases and are intended only to be implementational. Still, they may be important for individual cases.
• Official government policy statements may be very useful even though they are usually fundamental and non-specific.
• Natural justice is perhaps the most useful for advocates. It can be very easy to argue that a particular law is basically unfair or is based on incorrect information.
• Government watchdogs are a good place to start. Ombudsmen can't change a decision but they have the power to investigate cases and recommend changes. The government has boards that oversee anything that needs a license.

Beware of some of these processes. For example, you are stuck if you get an unfavorable court decision and have no grounds for appeal.