A bill of rights and responsibilities maybe.

Before we can listen to Susan Ryan on this Human Rights Bill, she will need to spell it out to us on a whiteboard.

The wacko lefties seem to be the only ones interested in a Bill of Rights. Like a republic, a Bill of Rights is an uneeded wast of time, money and effort.

Thank you for your contribution to the debate. I welcome the work of New Matilda - anything that advances the debate on the need for human rights in Australia is worthwhile.

However we must not accept the proposition that statutory protection is adequate: it is not.

Constitutional protection of human rights is necessary to ensure that the rights of all people - majorities and minorities - are adequately protected. This can only be done properly when the judiciary is entrusted with the power to make final decisions on rights. As the only genuinely independent branch of government they are the only branch equipped to make unpopular decisions.

I wonder if those who oppose the introduction of constitutionally-protected human rights would feel the same if their own rights were challenged or removed? Sadly it seems that many people lack the moral imagination to see themselves in a position of genuine powerlessness.

Could Australia still have a flourishing economy AND constitutional protection of human rights?

Can we walk and chew gum at the same time?

I just don't buy the "this is not realistic" argument. That argument is never accompanied by compelling or persuasive evidence. There are plenty of countries that have constitutionally-entrenched and judicially-enforceable human rights. It is not relevant to point to those countries and isolate the human rights abuses: these events show need for improvement but don't detract from the fundamental argument that we should have such rights here.

Obviously there are many who insist that a Bill or Rights be accompanied by "Responsibilities". This is just semantics. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - which Australia signed years ago - contemplates rights and the need to respect those rights (ie. "responsibilities").

Having said that, we should be very careful to ensure that any attempts to impose "responsibilities" on us do not deviate from the international human rights that are ours because we are human, not because we are Australian (or Canadian, or British, or whatever).

Just to reinforce that point: I deserve protection of my human rights because I am human, not because I am Australian.

All nations that value freedom, have a Bill of Rights. Israel have a Bill of Rights that excludes Arabs, Leigh is right, abouts rights, we dont want to have legislation passed. making us all equal before the law, if Zimbabwi can get along without a bill of rights so can we, mangotree,

>>We are now the only democracy that does not have one and our human rights record has been disappointing <<

Is this absolutely disappointing, as in we are at the bottom of the league of human rights abusers? Or are we talking about relatively disappointing? As in, we have a history of human rights abuse without a Bill of Rights, that compares unfavourably with countries who have a Bill of Rights?

If the author thinks we are in the former category, well... all I can say is, she doesn't get out much.

If we fall into the latter category, could she please provide some detail on how badly we compare with those other countries? A simple checklist should do it.

We have a functioning democracy and a citizenry that by and large agree to be bound by the rule of law. A Bill of Rights will not change this, as it demonstrably fails to in countries who adopt one. It is simply a means by which yet another bunch of lawyers can make a ton of money, while at the same time feeling righteous about doing so. An unsavoury combination.

>>Susan Ryan points out that if Australia had had a Bill of Rights, those anti-terrorism laws would not have made it through Parliament <<

Pure speculation. Patriot Act, anyone?

It is also disingenuous to remark that those who heard how “Muslims had been insulted by calls of 'bag head', 'terrorist', 'rapist' and 'human cargo', spat on, punched and children bullied, could well understand his passion and support for a Bill of Rights.”

Exactly how would a Bill of Rights help in this regard? Surely such situations are adequately covered under existing assault legislation? If it is not, then it is certain that a Bill of Rights that “would not affect the validity, operation or enforcement of any Commonwealth law” will be of absolutely no assistance.

The problem is the way they provide for “freedoms” that are individually totally impossible to codify. The wording allows a broad range of interpretations, that inevitably morph over time. Grist to the lawyers mill.

I have no interest in a Bill of Rights unless there is a very detailed discussion and inclusion of the responsibilities that go with those rights.

So I agree with Kenny’s short but very deep and multidimensional statement.

"Kenny"..."deep" ? in the same sentence ? *checks if there is a different "Kenny" joined the forum*...nope.. :)

Sorry.. can't resist

Skeptic...HOW will your bill of rights protect the freedom to tell the truth about Mohammed and Islam if you happen to be one of those 'evil right wing bible thumping hyper fundamentalist Christians" ?

You refer to Muslims being called names...... etc.. well, we 'brain damaged, moron, bozo,lunatic, armchair Nazi's' who are called by the name "Christian" (just some of the names used in this forum towards us by among others Muslim Irfan) would like some of that protection also.

Looking around here in Victoria we hava had to my knowledge ZERO examples of Christians taking Muslims to court for such things as being described in the Quran (BY NAME) as 'deserving of Allahs wrath' etc... Now..in terms of the RRT2001 that is in my opinion defamatory, and degrading and marginalizing and holding a group called 'Christians' up to public ridicule.

But.. lets look again. We had a couple of Pastors who said such things as 'Muslims will seek to take power' here..and guess what... now we have quite a number of Muslims in custody over alleged plots to assassinate our PM and his family..among other things.

Ok..they did not differentiate between 'Mainstream' Muslims and 'Those who are radical/extreme' etc, but their view is, that the radicals/extremists are in fact the true-est to their foundation documents.

It seems to me that even withOUT a bill of "rights" we Christians are getting the very rough end of the legislative stick.

I further contend that if it were not seen to be in the specific political interests of the ideology you represent, you would not give such an idea the time of day.

The problem with a 'bill of rights' is not the rights in themselves, but the interpretation, as we found in the Catch the Fire case.
Legislation can say this and that, but when judges ignore this, and interpret it how they like, we have a problem, especially when it
is USED as a political weapon against the majority.

I'm no ostrich, I've never seen a convincing argument for a Bill of Rights, but I've seen strong arguments against. A BoR will remove many issues from the political arena, where they belong, to the legal arena, where they'll be subject to people such as Michael Kirby. No thanks.

The last line speaks of the paranoia inherant in the proposition for the bill of rights... "that's what Germany did in the 1930's"... a paranoia held by the left towards the imposition upon the people of duty and responsability. Our rights are nothing more than what if left after our duties and obligations have been counted up, and fortunately for us, we are a peaceful, prosperous nation. Why do you hate our traditions so much?

This is an interesting article, Bill of rights is the question, well, and here is a link to Irfans mate: Peter Faris QC: http://www.farisqc.observationdeck.org/?p=396 Read with due vigor and diligence. Leftism on the march again!

“Anyone who has heard, Dr Mohammad Abdullah, imam and research fellow and director of Griffith Islamic Research Unit (GIRU), Griffith University:"

Interesting, and what do you know about this fellow?
Do you know what it is in Islam to become an Imam?
Well if you had that knowledge then that part would have been deleted from the article, thus the article is a text of no consequence.
So I consider it a Leftist ploy to play on the Ignorance (Brainwashed) ideology of others.
You can dream on: It will never happen, nor will thinking people let it happen.
An Imam in Islam is ? and what must he have done to gain a title of Imam? Out side of a Caliphate.

If you are going to convince me about a BOR you will need to explain to me why I would or should trust an unelected judiciary, who may not reflect my views and opinions, over an elected Parliament where I vote for those who do represent those views and opinions.

I am happy to trust judges to enforce and even occasionally interpret legislation. I would be most unhappy with them deciding what legislation means in the context of a BOR, without some easy way for legislators to over-ride their more inane interpretations.

A BOR seems to be a discussion fostered by an elite of non-ostriches who simply despair of ever seeing their preferred candidates get elected. Much easier to hand power over from a government they don't like to a judiciary with whom they feel a far stronger identification.

Regards

Kevin

Kevin's right... Kirby destroyed all my faith in the judiciary with his bloody judicial activism.

Australia needs a Bill of Rights to protect 'freedom of expression' from Islamofascists -

Australia also needs a security force which can protect newspapers' editors, journalists and cartoonists, and foregin embassies etc, otherwise the Australian public will 'self-censor'and a Bill of Rights will be useless...

NSW Police could not handle the racist 'revenge attacks' where so-called Australians targeted other Anglo Australians, asking, "are you Australian" before punching, kicking, stabbing, and throwing a lump of concrete on a mans head fracturing his eye socket as happened in one of many attacks.

If Middle Eastern thugs are asking, "are you Australian" as a screen-test for an attack, then they should be stripped of Australian citizenship and deported.

By asking such question it reveals the attack to be a "hate-crime" and the attackers to be 'racists' who do not see themselves as Australian = a big problem for Australian society

http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message.htm

Baraka,

Curiosity: Why do u use a 'middle eastern' nickname?
Don't you find all your postings a little....'one of the same'?

Fellow_Human,

Have a look at the link - take your pick of definitions of 'baraka' -'Middle Eastern'...ah... not that one sorry...

'one is the same'... yes, exactly - no other issue in Australian society has held a knife to my throat and threatened to kill me because I was Australian -

ALL other social and political issues are subordinate to the Middle Eastern problem

- what is the point of 'fair' wages and working conditions, when you come home from work to find your daughter in tears because the Middle Eastern thugs have harrassed, intimidated, and threatened to rape her at school...

- what is the point of trains that run on time, when you can be attacked by gangs of Middle Eastern thugs on the trains who patrol the carriages looking for Australians to rape, or threaten with knives...

Fellow_Human, it doens't matter what the issue, it means nothing if it is tainted by Middle Eastern thugs... think about it... before you commence building, you have to clear away the rubble...

It would help if commentators bothered to read the Matilda Bill. Produced by moderate right wingers, it seeks to bolster protection of human rights while maintaining the sovereignty of parliament. Thus although the courts would have the power to declare an Act of parliament in conflict with the Bill, the parliament in turn would have the power to insist on the Act, which would become law.

Canada has had such a system for a while, and it works well.

Do we have a human rights record that is inferior to Canada? Too right we do. The recent spate of laws that allow detention without trail of people whe are not even suspected of involvement in crime are one example. Our shameful treatment of refugees and their children is another.

As for judges' decisions, have those who attack them bothered to read any?

Ozbib wrote, "It would help if commentators bothered to read the Matilda Bill."

Sterling suggestion, ozbib, though contrary to the practice of many contributors here to not let facts get in their way. Just in case someone does want to read it, they can find it at http://www.newmatilda.com/admin/imagelibrary/images/ydt2Wji77QxS.doc

The table of contents gives a quick overview of the rights that it addresses.

It is true that a Bill of Rights structured after the US pattern puts some decisions in the hands of judges that most people would prefer politicians to make. The legality of abortion is an often-cited example. However the US structure is not what New Matilda is proposing.

The High Court of Australia publishes its judgements. For example the Mabo case is at http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/disp.pl/au/cases/cth/HCA/1992/23.html

This was thought by many to be an example of "activist" judges "discovering" a right that legislators had never intended.

The Court (which, by the way, did not then include Michael Kirby) found in a 6:1 judgement that, "the common law of this country recognizes a form of native title which, in the cases where it has not been extinguished, reflects the entitlement of the indigenous inhabitants, in accordance with their laws or customs, to their traditional lands..."

The reasoning was complex. The judges wrote five separate judgements. This is not the sort of careful logic that you can expect from a parliamentary debate.

As for a Bill of Rights being a leftist plot, nobody who reads business newspaper The Economist would dream for a moment of accusing it of being leftist. (This week it is grumbling about governments' tendency towards creeping paternalism, http://economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6772346 ) Yet when the British Code of Human Rights came into effect in 2000 it editorialised, "The adoption of a code of human rights marks a welcome change..."

Contributors here who believe that the rich and the powerful have an inalienable right to exploit the poor and the weak will remain unconvinced. The best we can do is to outnumber them.

The biggest problem with the "Matilda Bill" is that it has too many words, and too many of these words would be open to subsequent interpretation.

That isn't only a fault of this particular document, but is visible in other countries with the massive increase in "Human Rights Lawyers" who make a living from the interpretation of the generalizations that are the only material with which such Bills can safely deal.

I can imagine a lot of legal fun, for example, with the "Right to Life" clause that states "This section applies to a person from the time of their birth."

This specifically excludes embryos, so will have the effect of finally silencing the right-to-lifers on the topic of abortion.

Was this intended?

If it is changed to "this section applies to a person from the time of their conception", it would have the reverse impact, of finally making all forms of abortion illegal.

Either way, I can see a massive new area of legal discussion from which the only winners will be (surprise) lawyers.

And this is only one clause. Let's find another.

In the section on the right to a fair trial, we find that "Everyone has the right to ... a fair and public hearing."

But once again, the devil is in the detail.

"However, the public may be excluded from all or part of a trial ... to protect public order or national security in a democratic society"

Anyone who has had any dealings with the government, even on matters as harmless as freedom of information, will know how easy it is for them to invoke the excuse of "detrimental to national security".

There is unfortunately nothing in the Bill of Rights that imposes upon any government the requirement to conform with it - hence all these weasel-clauses, without which no government on earth would allow such a Bill to be passed.

Toothless. Pointless. Just a piece of self-righteous tosh that states the obvious in order to make its proponents feel all warm inside, instead of having to get off their backsides and do something practical.

Baraka,

Thugs & criminal should be seen as policing issues.
Whether they are Asian, middle eastern, italian or Anglo gangs should not matter. The law have to be enforced on everyone evenly for safer streets.