“In pursuit of persuading Australians they need a Bill of Rights…”

If a Bill of Rights was such a good idea for Australia, people would not need to be “persuaded”! Perhaps the persuasion (read hassling) from elitists like Robertson, who has spent the last 40 years living away from home, rightly raises suspicion of a totally unnecessary Bill of Rights pushed by people who arrogantly think they know what is best for the rest of us.

How many ordinary Australians have demanded a Bill of Rights? As for judges being “…independent and impartial…”, what rubbish! They have their own ideas, like everybody else, and those ideas may or may not be acceptable to the majority of Australians.

Who the hell is Robertson or judges to decide what is best for “ordinary people”!

Far from being “one of Australia’s favourite sons”, Robertson is an adopted Pom who doesn’t like living in Australia. He should keep his nose, and ideas, out of here.

Obviously, Leigh has never been a victim of either lawyers or courts. Try visiting a few men`s rights websites to get a taste of the feeling out there. The fact that the ‘average’ Australian doesn`t back a Bill of Rights is a tribute to their apathy, not their perspicacity or ethics.

"In addition to England having a Bill of Rights, he said so did New Zealand, Germany, South Africa, and “Obama is creating one”.

If all your friends jump off a cliff, will do jump as well? Just because "everyone else" is doing it doesn't make it right.

There is too much attention "rights" and very little to responsibility. Australians are not apathetic on this issue; rather, it would seem that they are not prepared to accept ideas without rigorous analysis.

"In some contexts, he said a Bill of Rights was useful to politicians. When the UK Parliament did not want to get involved in legislation it was happy to leave it to the courts, as in the area of death with dignity".

I think I'd like to sack any politican that was happy to avoid their responsibility's to society and sneak out of having to take a position on the difficult issues (abortion, death with dignity, euthanasia) by foisting it on the courts. Missing important votes in Parliament on such issues is a bit backboneless too.

“In pursuit of persuading Australians they need a Bill of Rights, he reminded the audience that judges were independent and impartial - beholden to no one. A Bill of Rights was not so much about power, but about principles…”

Most understandable that Robertson should up hold the principles of his profession. It is most commendable that that the alleged high moral and ethical values of lawyers should be on public display for all to see and accept on trust?

The reality is different. Judges are appointed by the government of the day. The criteria of appointment are of course varied. Among the unspoken criteria is the requirement that the potential judge will be in sympathy with the general direction of the Governments philosophies. That way a political party can influence events long after their time is up.

A cursory reading of news papers should show that judges often make wrong decisions, especially in criminal cases. A point to consider is the perceived inadequate sentencing for violent crime. That is why parliaments attempt to introduce mandatory sentences- we the public do not always trust the judiciary.

My understanding of a fair trial: A forum for clever barristers to demonstrate their forensic and thespian skills. A high profile trial provides free advertising for the lucky lawyers and more then justifies any investment in pro bono work.
A legal trial is not a quest for truth; it is a contest between advocates. All too often the guilty party goes free and the innocent convicted. This is especially the case if one of the parties in the case can afford the services of a high powered and expensive legal team.

Thus one concludes that the chief beneficiary of a “Bill of Rights” can only be the legal profession. The proposed bill is nothing less then the opening up of new gold mine accessible only to the legal fraternity.

The problem with any bill of rights especially in a nanny state like Aus, is that people confuse what is desirable to what is right.

When too many fuzzy "rights" are included, legal interpretation gives rise to absurd judgments.

Any bill of rights should be limited to the basic fundamental rights and not all the PC drivel that will dog us for years to come.

As far as the basic human rights are concerned, I don't see any infringements in Aus.

"Geoffrey Robertson QC gave no quarter to politicians, public servants and officials last Sunday: they do not like the idea of a Bill of Rights in case their power should be curbed, he said. And they do not like their power curbed by unelected judges".

Certainly the battlelines have been drawn with opponents of a Bill of Rights accusing the lawyers in favour of it, of being after money and doing a power grab themselves. Both sides have been busy questioning the others motives which are likely to be overwhelmingly honourable on both sides.

Still on the fence myself, but I wonder about the impact on the right of Australians to take part in formulating and changing legislation, if it comes down to a Judge signing off on legislation to say yes or no. There are human rights abuses that need to be fixed in Australia. I think it would be a good thing if the Bikie laws hit a Bill of Rights wall for breaching freedom of association personally, though I bet lots of people disagree with me.

I'm thinking of the less clear situtation say if the Rudd Government put up a bit of legislation that said that photographers were not allowed to use child models under 16 for nude shots, an issue that would be sure to bring Julian Burnside out swinging. If it came down to a Judge deciding one way or the other, there could be human rights arguments made both ways. If I didn't like the Judges decision though, I'm a bit cut out of the process.

to be continued...

If it remained with the Government, I could lobby, ring, write, gather others to a campaign, even do a little bit of peaceful civil disobedience to get publicity and bother my local member and the minister's office no end. How would I have a say in about where a Judge comes down though? The courts are a different kind of forum, not open to all interested comers. That might be a good thing in times of strong national feeling such as the Tampa case, but might stifle democracy in a way in the case of ordinary everyday sort of legislaton where there may be competing interests.

Chances are if it comes down to a model of a Judge saying it's compatible with a Human Rights Bill, and then the Government having the option to ignore it, a Howard style Government probably would and the Bill of Rights would be labelled as a leftie lawyers plot. Hopefully the unfortunate Judge wouldn't also be under attack and there wouldn't be a attempt to discredit them personally as well, as what happened with some percieved opponents of the last Government.

I am fearful that a bill of rights would be as likely to curtail our freedoms as enhance them.

I also believe that such a bill would tend to enshrine what are really just worthy aspirations such as the "right" to adequate food and shelter for all, or ideological principles like unfettered property "rights" as rights in the same way as liberty and freedom of association and of expression are rights.

As an earlier post noted rights need to be matched by responsibilities.
My rights should not be at the expense of someone else.

I attended a conference on the future of public schooling in Canberra, where Geoffrey Robertson QC also delivered the guest speech.

We too heard about the Bill of Rights.

GR made a very strong connection between Australia's secular public schooling, democracy as we practice it here, and our freedoms.

At the end a question was raised as to what he thought about Queensland not having a secular public schooling system, since 1910.

GR was taken aback. All public school systems in Australia are secular, surely?

Not so in Qld, where Education Queensland employees are instructed to give Bible reading from the Good News Bible, where Christian Missionaries are allowed in to state schools from World Vision, from, so we are hearing now, Gloria Jean's, from evangelical local churches, to work on a one-on-one basis with 'at risk' students.

The expression 'at risk', in Scripture Union parlance, the evangelical group that supplies most of Qld's school 'chaplains' is code for 'unchurched' and 'not yet Christian' according to the commentary we read from chaplains themselves.

A Bill of Rights would protect our children from these Christian incursions into state schools, where our weak politicians, such as Anna Bligh, have so miserably failed to act.

What is needed, here in Qld, is indeed a Bill of Rights, to save us from the madness of Christian missionaries.

What I gleaned from GRs response to the question was that he felt it was the height of irresponsibility for any government in a western democratic liberal state to inject any form of religion into a public education system.

I can only hope that Education Queensland's spies in attendance heard this commentary, and slunk home to their new Minister, Mr. Geoff Wilson, another Christian according to his webpage, and suggested he move to re-secularise the public education system asap.

He won't, of course, unless we have a Bill of Rights to force such a move.