A bill or rights does seem a bit airy-fairy and pie in the sky to me also. But I think that considering it and discussing it in public forums does have value. It serves to get us thinking about what we consider to be rights that we should have so we can come to some explicit agreement about them. Enshrining them in law is probably unnecessary, but the discourse is important and proposing something to be legislated seems to be a good way to kick off active public discussion and debate.

If we had a bill of rights focused on natural law principles like that of the Americans then I would have no problem with it. However, instead we'd probably get one plasted togeather by every minority group with a friendly back bencher which would result in a horrid bloated and ugly document like that produced by the iraqis.

DLC, even the "natural law principles" enshrined in the US Bill of Rights have been the subject of dispute.

Here's the "First", in all its glory:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

And here's a list of prominent cases involving the First Amendment:

http://www.oyez.org/oyez/portlet/directory/400/401/

The point here is whether a "human right" is enhanced or confused by the existence of a Bill of Rights. Experience in the USA might suggest that it is simply there to provide expensive schooling for the offspring of constitutional lawyers.

i do agree, after hearing the talk from the last few days, that a Bill of Rights would just put power into the hands of intellectual activists who 'know better' than the rest of us .. essentially it would allow them to bypass democracy completely, when they feel the democratic choice that the majority of australians make isn't the right one..

the thing about democracy is, the choice the majority makes is always the right one.. it seems the intellectual set is not happy with the way most australians have accepted the new, very few restrictions on our freedom to ensure our security.. they can't stand that we don't seem to be up in arms about it, just like they can't stand we voted in johnny with a massive majority, just like they can't stand modern australia.. let's not just hand our future over to a bunch of activists with too much time , funding and contempt for our culture.. our destiny is our own, to be decided by us..

a Bill of Rights sounds nice.. then again so does the Nationalist Socialist Democratic Party!

Is the author the same person who called for torture to be introduced into Australia's law enforcement agencies? If so, please bring on a bill of rights ASAP!!

Get the message, folks? Those freedom-loving countries Rawanda, China, South Africa and Sudan all have Bills of Rights! So, I believe does Russia.

As the author points out, we already have the necessities for all of the freedoms known to man. And we are free to practise those freedoms now.

Let’s hope that this latest Bracksism doesn’t spread any further.

Democracy means having elected governments to make the rules – not having unelected judges, who have no better perceptions of right and wrong than the rest of us, meddling in our lives.

The proponents of a Bill tell us that governments will have the last say. Not very comforting when we consider that it is governments who most want to foist these things on us without asking our opinion