Well Done David,

you've managed to take an intelligent debate and turn it into something stupid.

But you make my point precisely, my argument is that you are trying to tell everyone 200 years down the track how they should live.

As for the separation of church and state, last time I checked the head of the commonwealth of australia was QE II, who is also the head of the church of england (anglican), so where is the separation? 128 merely says that the commonwealth cannot impose a religion but it does not bar a state from doing so.

Bills of rights create problems as they institute one set of values for all time, and become an excuse for loonies to abuse in their search for a way around the will of the people.

You can have a Bill of Rights but you had better bury democracy at the same time, but then again most of the people who like bills of rights aren't fans of the will of the people anyway.

The comments here are very interesting. I think the work of the Canadian Courts in response to their Bill of Rights is worth a look at too.

The most interesting point made in these posts are "gazettal" of policy. Bureaucrats suggest or respond with a legal platform for their masters (sometimes even in response to public thinking!) this is 'debated' by backbenchers and cabinet and a Act of Parliament is produced. This act is then backed by Regulations developed by the bureaucrats and then further 'interpreted' by departmental guidelines and policies, to the point where the implementation of the Act is at odds with the stated purpose of the legislation. Doesn't happen? Try looking at the Office of Film & Literature Classification.

I remember entering a NSW department with a few of my children, who were very well behaved I hasten to add, and being met with some bemusement by departmental staffers who gave the impression that they hadn't seen a child since leaving school.

The point is, regardless of the Bill, the implementation process is just as important and if there is an imbalance of policy makers being representative of the wider community, then we will have policy / implementation issues

Thank you Nick Ferret, it is indeed homosexual judge Justice Kirby who is the most dissenting judge in High Court history, not Justice Yeldham. If you think that my “conspiracy theory” is “rococo”, then at least I made an attempt to articulate my premise, while you have merely claimed I am wrong without even bothering to formulate a counter argument.

I stand by my assertion that the Bill of Rights is the cause celebre of the homosexual lobby, and the main beneficiaries will be homosexuals, human rights activists, criminals and terrorists. I have already cited my reasons why homosexuals are the main proponents of a Bill of Rights. In addition, Respected former NSW Labour premier Bob Carr opposed a Bill of Rights, pointing out that the main customers would be criminals.

To point out how dangerous a Bill of Rights can be to national security, I need only point out that Britain has abrogated much of their own democratic sovereignty to the European Convention on Human Rights.

With the bombings in London, the Blair government has finally cracked down on the extremist Muslim terrorist endorsing imams and has instituted a package of legal reforms. These reforms are designed to deport religious extremists, close down mosques that foment violence and begin the screening immigrants for Islamic radicals. These reforms have now been legally challenged in the ECHR by “British” Muslims. A perfect example of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

But that is exactly what happens whenever any worthy moral value is elevated to a moral absolute. Any moral absolute can be taken to extremes where it becomes a parody of the very rights and values it was originally set up to protect. Handing politicians sweeping power can be bad enough, but at least politicians are limited by separations of power and by elections. No such restraints hold back activist judges who can use the law to go into places it was never intended to go. I cite the notorious attempt by one judge to use the NSW Family Law Court to order the release of detained children in Australia’s detention centres.

Thank you Mr Reality Check. You may be interested to know that Canadians are calling their High Court “The High Court Party” because of it’s unashamed political activism.

I am not surprised that departmental staffers looked askance at you for bringing children into their department. One suspects that they have little contact with children because such an outcome would be biologically impossible with their “partners.”

Which brings us to the hallowed halls of the Office of Film and Literature Clasification. There is no doubt that there is a big push on to bring in a Bill of Rights which would sanctify The Right to Free Expression. But with younger and younger children dying today of drug overdoses, and with children today being involved in serious violent crimes like rape, robbery, extortion and murder, one wonders how much longer the public will tolerate an entertainment media which brazenly promotes, glamourises and endorses violent criminal behaviour and drug abuse to out youngest generation.

The fastest growing crime statistic in the US today is juvenile homicide, while the Australian Institute of Criminology claimed in 2000 that it was "puzzled" at he significant rise in serious juvenile violent crime.

With pop stars, artists and movie directors now stooping to undreamed of levels of vulgarity and depravity, and with a public becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the images that their children are seeing or hearing in the electronic media, certain sections of the media look to a Bill of Rights to enshrine their “rights” to creativity and to protect themselves from future public control, for ever and ever.

A Bill of Rights would become like the US First Amendment. It would be a shield to greedy corporations and their troupes of performing vulgarians. It would be an obstacle for families and a threat to children for generations to come.

Nothing above counts as intellegent debate. The so called argument against a 'bill of rights' is a homophobic rant mixed in with a confused understanding of religious freedom.

Section 128 concerns changing the referendum. Brent, you will find that section 116 is about protecting the religion of minorities and in particular unpopular monorities. (see Jehovah Witnesses Case, 1943). In Australia, the Queen is not the head of the Anglican Church.

I’m feeling depressed today.
Yesterday, all the state and territory premiers signed off on John Howard’s draconian new antiterrorist legislation. There’s absolutely no doubt now where this tragic country is heading — inexorably towards a quasi-fascist police state. Now anyone, innocent or not, and at official whim, can be lifted off the streets, or worse, tossed into the bowels of some Oz version of Lubianca and be subjected to — yes — torture.
We know there’s no Bill of Rights or guarantee of civil freedoms in Oz. That’s why a reactionary prime minister was able to win over the conservative ‘Labor’ premiers. It was too easy. No legal impediments.
Australia has always embraced authoritarianism, despite our fondness for believing we have a laid-back larrikin nature. I guess it goes back to the very foundations of our birth — a country that began its European history as a penal colony, murdering the original inhabitants in the process. Official violence and contempt for the individual is as Australian as a meat pie thrown in a footy game.
I don’t think it’s far-fetched to say that we’re going down the gurgler.
The antiterrorist industry is celebrating its new licence to grow without limit or accountability. Exploding spook bureaucracies like ASIO can and will encourage an even more vicious climate of lies, hearsay and innuendo. Free speech and political criticism will be costly. Say or print something disparaging of government policy and it will be construed as being ‘against the national interest’. The next thing you know, some goons are at your door, inviting you down to the nick for consultation. The citizenry, already manipulated by a cynical government, will become even more fearful — of exaggerated terrorist threats, of the police and of each other. Welcome to Stasiland.
If I were younger I think I would be seriously thinking about chucking in my Australian citizenship and heading to New Zealand or back to Canada. But at 73, I’ll likely be saved the horror of witnessing the future and what this once promising country had become.