Proponents of a Bill of Rights, a republic or any other change to the Constitution don’t want any participation from the hoi polloi. These elitists are about reducing democracy, not encouraging us to participate in it. They know that we are not prepared to swap elected representation for the whims of unelected lawyers and judges, many of whom already believe they have a right to make laws and believe that they know more about everything than the rest of us, including democratically elected politicians who are answerable directly to us.

Some years ago, I had a discussion with an ACT Legislative Assembly Member regarding Bills of Right.

He passionately argued that a BOR does not grant rights, but rather limits them by listing these rights. He continued that unforseen changes in society at some future time may derail the whole principle of a BOR.

An example being the archaic American Right to Bear Arms. This makes sense when you are engaged in a war for your independence, but should this confer the right for Americans to have F15 Jet Fighters or Nukes in their backyards?

There is also the problem of suspending a persons rights. Which rights are suspended for convicted criminals? Which rights do we surrender in times of war? Which rights do we surrender in times of economic hardship? I can remember having the right to withdraw my labour - to strike. Not any more without incurring possible fines.

Any discussion on Bill of Rights that is limited to academics/lawyers is going to come to a dead end .
If these subjects are opened up to public discussion and then offered as a citizens referendum, there may be a positive outcome.

Every single word helped to convince me that we don't want one, & that we can not afford to have a single word of our constitution changed.
Even if we got the words right, our legal system would damn soon give us an interpretation to our disadvantage.
Hasbeen

Hasbeen, you are lucky, because New Matilda is not proposing that we change our constituion. It is a Human Rights Act - a piece of legislation - not a constitutional amendment. It means that the parliament can change the law if it needs amendment - just like other Acts of Parliament.

And Leigh, re your concerns, I think you should you take some time to read New Matilda's proposed Human Rights Act along with the UK and ACT Human Rights Acts.

You will see that none of these transfer the power to make or amend laws away from the parliament. What they do, is allow the courts to consider whether laws infringe rights and then report back to the parliament.

The parliament then decides what to do - it can keep the laws as they are and explain why the infringement of rights is justified or it can amend the laws to make then less damaging to rights.

This would lead to informed debate in the parliament and the community, not the exclusion of the hoi polloi frlom the legislative process.

The fact is, they are already excluded from the legislative process. The best example of this is the week long senate committe hearing whose report was ignored (remember Sedition) and the guillotining of the terrorism laws in the Senate after all of 5 hours and 41 minutes of debate.

In other words, the government wouldn't even allow a full working day of debate on highly controversial laws. And you think supporters of a human rights act are anti-democratic?

Whenever Bills of Rights and participatory democracy are mentioned, two thoughts come to mind:

1. Whatever its other defects may be, at least the text of our Constitution can only be changed by the people.

2. The first referendum that would take place after citizen initiated referendum was instituted would be one to bring back hanging.

Tim points to “three main weaknesses” with the proposed Act, the first being that it “pretends to be non-political”. Is this not exactly what a human rights covenant should be and exactly what a country’s constitution is supposed to be, the latter being the very document Tim Anderson wants overhauled?

Secondly, Tim states that the Act does not represent or advance participatory democracy but the fact there has been such a push by the campaign for submissions and feedback is so that there is free and full public and parliamentary debate (and notably from more than just the “educated types” Tim Anderson refers to).

Thirdly, Tim believes the bill does not seek to engage with popular achievements in Australian history but this overlooks the fact that rights protection for all Australians references and remedies past injustices without having to include an acknowledgement or disclaimer or historical bio before every clause.

As for a discussion of the practical implications of implementing international human rights protection, the experience of other countries such as the UK, NZ, Canada and South Africa demonstrate the practical impact on indigenous rights, immigration, incarceration of nationals, arbitrary detention, same sex rights and more.

The fact is the happy majority in Australia do not currently feel the effects of discrimination or other impediments to their freedoms and therefore assume they never will. The fact is that, as Tim states, both major political parties in Australia and the corporate media are doing damage to our democracy. The fact is that Australia’s international reputation is regressing further by the day due to its blatant disregard for international treaties and domestic human rights protection. Surely the proposed Act is effective in addressing these issues and achieving Tim Anderson’s goals of defining rights and the Australian identity? It may even just be a valid and effective first step, keeping in mind that there are examples of countries where a two-step implementation process of a bill followed by constitutional amendment has been successful (in Canada, for example). Australia needs domestic human rights protection and the proposed Human Rights Act affords just that.

First things first, there were more reasons than the White Australia Policy which stopped a bill of rights, especially seeing as we decided not to have a bill of rights before we enacted the White Australia Policy. What is at issue is whether or not rights can be protected without a bill of rights, and whether or not having a bill of rights might damage things like democracy, the parliament, or our society in general.

Firstly, Bills of Rights offer very little success. America is the perfect answer, where it allowed massive descrimination on the grounds of race, was used to allow enormous corporations to become monopolies and be unregulated from state to state. In more recent times, it has been used to permit obscene, libellious and treasonable material to be published, and to promote the "rights" (give undeserved principles without responsibility) to minority groups. From this, one can see that Bills of Rights are not protectors of rights, just tools of whatever prejudice holds sway in the day. Monopolistic capital in the 19th and early 20th century, and a politically correct libertarianism in the late 20th. What it says, simply, is that a Bill of Rights is just a document to be used to whatever political ends one might wish. Take the right to Free Speech in the American constitution. Once considered to refer to political speech, it is now used to permit obscenity and libellous material.

Rights are, in many ways, like art. Often it is the ambiguity and obscurity of something that sheds light on it. Take, for example, the CUSTOMARY British right to free speech. It is the traditional gap that exists between sedition laws, libel laws, laws against treason, laws agaisnt obscenity, and laws against causing public disorder. If we were to say "we have a right to free speech", then chances are that it would be used to justify removing the above laws which created our customary right to it.

That is, a stated right assumes that it is something which exists naturally, and that everything else is an attempt to take it away. In reality, unless there is an authority over the land, we have no rights, because we have no civil society by which to define it, as rights are the product of a civil society. We are acutely aware of our customary rights, but understand that it is a product of necessity tempered by social obligation.

The great irony of those who accuse the conservatives in Australia of attacking Australian democracy is that many of them want a Bill of Rights... many of them also say that our society is becoming meaner and less concerned with our neighbours. Surely, a Bill of Rights is the type of thing that makes us more individualistic, selfish and selfserving! The people understand that, for the large part, we must discern between different sexes, sexualities and ethnicities at times. How could we seek to better the lot of Aboriginal communities by cutting of booze and smokes from their settlements with a bill of rights? How could we seek to use marriage as a means for increasing the birthrate and ensuring that kids get their customary right to a traditional upbringing when it would allow an arrogant homosexual lobby to cheapen the institution and destroy the customary rights of children? How could our society have made itself the most egalitarian in the world by having a differentiated male/female/child wage which gave a true chance to working families with laws against descrimination on the grounds of gender?

In the end, we must have faith in the common sense and the common heritage. We can expect help from the judiciary rarely, our unelected Head of State's representatives have interveened in two of our darkest hours. In the end, however, it is the people and its representatives that must bear most decisions, and they should do so untethered by an impractical list of false rights, and inhindered by a politicised individualism.

In regards to the 'Bill of Rights’, we as a Global society have become more enlightened than our previous ones. Maintaining laws, which are not relevant to Nationalistic and Global issues concerns, are stupid and ignorant. These laws are obsolete to say the least. An Australian republic is the answer, an Australian for head of State, that is just right, that is what we are, a State of the World. Anyone who suggest otherwise are bias and narrow-minded. Our humanity is not confined to Nationalistic borders, but to Global borders. Having Nationalistic Pride is good if your intentions are pure, but at the expense of being superior to other Nations, is racist and British in bygone days. The 'Bill of Rights' needs scrapping thrown on the garage pile. We need a Republic because our future depends on it; a new constitution in line with the United Nation Preamble and Charter, stipulating Human Rights and Policies Issues, which co-relate with the equality of every Nation of this World.
I respect the Queen and the tradition of Royalty, but not to the extent of sacrificing our equality, dignity, and responsibility we have has a State Nation of the world. Let the Queen live their Royal dream in their Palace, the legacy will live on only in tradition, but the reality is an ‘Australian Republic’ will emerge in its right time in the near future. Our survival of this world depends on each Nations' becoming States of the World, being individualistic and co-depended on each other, purely because we are human beings and a benevolent society fighting against terrorism and injustices.

Australians will not support a Bill of Rights, primarily because they distrust the motives of those most clamourous in proposing it. People like Tim Anderson, a man implicated in the Hilton Hotel terrorist bombing, in which three Australians were murdered. The fact that the confessed bomber fingered Anderson as the mastermind who put him up to it, undouptably causes unease among the public, even though Anderson was found not guilty of the charge.

The reason why radicals like Tim Anderson support a Bill of Rights is because it is the easiest may to by pass the people’s Parliament, and have their pet causes adjudicated by “progressive” judges who now infest our courts. One only has to remember the case where a Family Law Court judge exceeded his authority by interpreting his judicial powers in such a way, as to dictate immigration policies to Parliament. This judge ordered the release of “refugee” children from Baxter detention centre.

It was never the intention of the Constitution for the Family Law Court to by pass Parliamentary authority on matters like immigration policy. If judges want to rule, they can stand for elections just like politicians. Giving lawyers and judges a Bill of Rights to play with will guarantee some pretty novel interpretations of what constitutes "rights" that will be parodies of the very freedoms which we all wish to keep.

In short, a Bill of Rights is nothing more than a Trojan Horse for people like Anderson, who can not get what they want through the ballot box, and so they prefer to resort to other means. It is a sugar coated cyanide pill which will explode and injure our community, just as indiscriminately as the Hilton bomb.

There is no case for an Australian republic or Bill of Rights. People calling for a republic in the name of Australian identity and independence could better serve their country by opposing anti-Australian multiculturalism.

To Mr Spuds.

Your claim that “majorities” in Australia do not feel the effects of discrimination is utterly wrong. What we experience from people like yourself, is a desire to discriminate against the majority, in order to suck up to minorities. Examples of this would be the inappropriately named NSW Anti Discrimination Board who’s mission in life is to promote the rights of minorities at the expense of the rights of the majority. One decision by the ABS legalised the concept that homosexual “gay bars” in Darlinghurst may discriminate by refusing entry to non homosexuals. Another decision legitimised the right of Bankstown’s “Fitness for Life” gymnasium to exclude non Muslim women from it’s membership. THE ABS also granted a Jewish dating agency the right to exclude non Jews from it’s membership. One could imagine the furore from the chattering class had roles been reversed. “Equality”? Don’t make me laugh.

These decisions, and many others, simply reinforce the concept that “progressive” institutions like the ABS will become parodies of the very concepts of equality and anti discrimination that they were set up to combat. A Bill of Rights would be used in exactly the same way to attack majorities and promote the social and legal domination of the majority, by minorities. That is something that the proponents of a BOR would prefer that the electorate stayed ignorant about.

Instead it couches it’s sales pitch with statements like “ensuring the absolute right of everybody to full equality”. Read instead, “We will make it so the majority can’t do a damned thing about whatever minorities want to do.”

I had a bit of a wheeze when you pulled out the old todge of “Australia’s reputation”, since trendy lefties are famous for attacking Australia’s international reputation and chucking mud at us. Who can forget the so called “stolen generation” myth where trendoids paraded around the world claiming that Australia was guilty of genocide and stealing aboriginal children from their mother’s breasts? You could not care less about the international reputation of your own people. Spare me the phoney moral grandstanding.

Thanks Tim Anderson for raising important issues.
The diverse range of responses is, of course, a quagmire. It is natural to be irritated by quagmirish discussions. Such a reaction, however, is short-sighted. There is an essential lesson to be learned from wading through such verbal bogs.
That lesson is that democratic discussion must always be like wading through a quagmire. What makes democratic discussion a quagmire is the reality that in a complex society, on most issues, there will be a wide range of views, many of which will be opposed to each other.
Got the message? A genuinely democratic society would treasure the quagmire of public views as its most valuable resource.
A genuinely democratic parliament would wade through the quagmire of public views on every issue it deals with. A genuinely democratic parliament would not only allow each and every view to be heard, but would carefully consider each and every view before attempting to reach a conclusion and make decisions.
The fact is that our existing parliaments are contemptuous of the quagmire of public views. In other words, our existing parliaments are not genuinely democratic.
An even sadder fact is that our existing society is also contemptuous of the quagmire of public views. In other words, our existing society is not genuinely democratic.
I agree that human rights are important. But I think that human rights will continue to be an unattainable ideal (or false facade) until societies sort out what are the responsibilities of a democratic citizen.
My feeling is that genuinely democratic citizens are personae non gratae – not wanted by either our parliaments nor (on the whole) our society.

Aker,

Representative democracy is better than direct democracy because it helps save us from the tyranny of the majority as described by Burke in favour of a trustee model of representation, allowing our representatives to use their best judgement. That being said, their best judgement is often terrible.

Here's a question: if we have a Bill of Rights, can we have a Bill of Correlative Responsibilities? These could include defending our nation in case of war, having enough children to ensure our society can at least replace itself, not speaking obscenely, not being a trator, not inviting sedition, not commiting libel, not stamping on tradition and heritage in the name of non-existant "rights", and so on and so forth...

The point is, our rights do not exist in a vacuum. They are what is left over after the state has ensured its stability, our society ensures its replication, and we ensure that our customs and rituals are preserved. We do believe in a custom of open political speech, but it is no right of ours, if political speech involves inciting to violence and rebellion. To define them as "rights" is to try to pin them down rather than view them through the glass darkly... like the best of art, the ambiguity that currently exists sheds light on the intricate relationship that we call "rights". Like photography, a Bill of Rights kills art.

Thanks DFXK. Your question is a good one. I agree with what I think your question implies: that every right worth its salt implies a corresponding responsibility.
To take what I regard as the prototype of all worthwhile rights – the right not to be abused – this implies a corresponding prototypic responsibility – the responsibility not to abuse others. Please note that this universal responsibility constitutes – or would constitute if it were taken seriously – a very rigorous restraint on any claimed freedom or right to act.
Your assertion that “Representative democracy is better than direct democracy because it helps save us from the tyranny of the majority as described by Burke in favour of a trustee model of representation, allowing our representatives to use their best judgement” makes no sense to me on the following grounds:
1. our “representative democracy” is just a pretense; a real representative is accountable all of the time to the people s/he represents. In our system, “representatives” are accountable only on election day; i.e. they are accountable less than 0.1% of the time. In other words, they are unaccountable to the people they are supposed to represent virtually all of the time. That is not representation;
2. do you seriously believe we are saved “from the tyranny of the majority”? Our “representatives” are elected in winner-takes-all elections. The votes in our parliaments are all winner-takes-all. Our nation is involved in an illegal war because our government had the numbers in the House of Representatives, and paid no heed to massive public indication of opposition before the war. Wasn't that a prime example of “tyranny of the majority”?
The “trustee model of representation” is bogus. We need an accountability “model” where representatives are accountable to their constituents all of the time. Without such accountability, our government will continue to be corrupt. Our existing system needs a complete rebuild.