Thank you Julian.
Leigh, what a strange response.If you had a measure of power would you deprive me of reading books and articles that you considered silly or unsuitable?
Clearly something if not many things need to be done to protect the rights of people living in Australia.Your points make sense FrankGol.
But a Bill of Rights can only go so far in The Worlds Greatest Mediocrity.
The quality and standard of parliamentary representation needs to be addressed along with reform of the practice and proceedures of Australian law and a shedding of the slovenliness and timidity of the media.
Today the Hon. John Dowd speaking under the umbrella of the ICJ conceded, in a fairly convoluted statement broadcast by the ABC, that the Andrews spin might affect the Haneef case because a number of Australians might,as a result of that statement,believe that there was more to his guilt than had hitherto been the case.
One might have expected Dowd to have focused rather more on the selective release of information,which under the circumstances of its release has no status.
My point being that the law and its interpretation is only as good as its practitioners and there is no substitute for courage,compassion and comonsense.
Well done Stephen Keim and Peter Russo.
Bruce Haigh

JamesH is right of course. This apparent lack of male human rights stems though from our history (males) of dominating and abusing all others. Women, children, other males, other countries. It is male dominated this denial of human rights and that explains to me why we don't get a mention. I do feel like James though, as if those of us who don't abuse etc are ignored.

Julian makes good points, as always. Once a law is passed the people generally accept it as "good". Generally. Law is law only as long as the people allow it to be. There are many current laws that are bad but are still law and can bring penalties.

Julian, I don't know how you wrote this item without using the word "Howard". As it is Howard that has caused many of us to think we do need a Bill of Rights. It is Howard who has and is stripping all our rights away. Other politicians of course will do the same and that is why we need this law. To stop 5 foot despots from using their position to bully people in order to exercise their "little man" syndrome.

Leigh demonstrates his open and enquiring mind as usual.

To Sam. Re Howard being the government. Listen to him and other "leaders" refer to the government they lead as "my government" instead of your government. The media follow this rubbish but should pull these despots up at every misuse of this ownership.

It is our government and they should legislate and administer for us. Not themselves and their moneyed buddies.

I can't disagree with Mr Burnside but I must ask "Who determines what those rights are?". Of course it is those in power. At this time it's you know who and we won't be getting any rights while he's there. I fear the same of Rudd however so where do we go from here?

Leigh's comments are interesting if you all want to think about it.

Leigh dismisses Mr Burnside's comments/item without reading because Leigh "knows his politics". In other words Leigh has been taught not to think, just react. If it's Labor speaking then it's wrong. If it's Coalition, it's right.

Congrats Leigh, you must have an easy life not being required to think.

A challenge to you mate. Can you tell us when your political allegiance was formed and why. What I mean here is most people just do "what Daddy taught me" and don't even consider that people from both sides of the political fence are actually capable of having good ideas. Although I must exclude Howard from this as he has never had an idea. Have a look at what he's done and you'll see it's all a copy of others.

He has copied Gough, Hawke, Keating and mostly Blair and Bush. Not a new idea has ever entered his head.

A Bill of Rights, which I support by the way, would not be a partisan issue. Burnside is responding to steps this particular government has taken, but this government won't be around forever.

Those who see the push for an Australian Bill of Rights as a lefty project might like to consider that such a bill would protect them from future governments as well.

It would prevent a future lefty government from forcing you to join a union and making hanging out with union thugs compulsory.

It would force a future greeny government from incarcerating anybody who hurt a tree.

It would prevent a future female prime minister from forcing men to wear skirts every second day just to even things up a bit.

It would prevent a future government of any description from outlawing religion of any brand, including the Christian ones.

And freedom of expression would prevent a future government from closing down public forums like the one we're all participating in here.

Bills of rights are about limiting the power of governments of all colours, not just the Howard one. To reject the idea altogether just because you don't like the politics of the person proposing it is short sighted.

If you're a Howard fan you might consider for a moment the increased powers this government has allocated to itself, then wonder whether you'd be happy for a Rudd government to have the same, or even extended, powers. It's a possibility at the next election, and even if they don't win this one, Labor will win sooner or later. Are you really happy to hand that same kind of power to the other side? Because that's what you're doing by opposing a Bill of Rights.

Where have I been FrankGol? Asleep mostly.

Sure I have heard about Hicks and faintly recall the others.

You seem to miss my point. How often have you heard or read?

"Human rights are women's rights." or variations of it.

It seems to me that in the gender politics war, male POW's do not have access to the Geneva Convention.

The US has a bill of rights and the Washington Administration have to take an oath that they will uphold the constitution including not using torture. But that does not hinder or slow in any way every flagrant and daily illegal abuse. Including a massive spying operation on its own citizens called "data mining."
In this country, Howard wants to overturn centuries-old legal principles, including detention without trial, the presumption of innocence, restritive access to legal assistance etc., The political establishment has boosted the police and intelligence agencies along with a welter of draconian laws aimed at attacks on democratic rights, legal rights and deepening social inequality.This has led over the last decade to increasing suspicion and growing hostility to the whole political establishment including the Labor Party. In lockstep, has been the plunder or diversion of the taxes earmarked for public hospitals, schooling, and all essential services. Taxes have gone up with services cut, long waiting lists or services in reverse. What has happened to this money? More over, there should be a full public accounting of public assets (some worth hundreds of millions of dollars) given to their well heeled cronies. (with something for themselves, directly, or indirectly.) In a nutshell, the politics they express 'are workers have no rights - the only right workers have is to pay for everything.'
The larger problem is that economic life dominates unnecessarily over human considerations. This will only change under a Workers Government with delegates voted in publicly and always subject to instant recall. There is no other way!