"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.