Came across this organization http://www.humanrightsact.tv and their myspace page is http://www.myspace.com/humanrightsact_tv

and was wondering what the deal is with a human rights act. According to them there seems to be no reasons why we wouldn't already have one.

why does Australia not have a human rights act?

sorry if there is already discussions on this i tried looking for one but couldn't find one.

thanks for the help.

Of course we should. It's ridiculous and just plain old dodgy we don't.

It seems that the last survey on this
question was done by ANU in Canberra,
and approx. 57% of those questioned
responded that we should definitely
have a human rights act.

My ignorance was, I thought we already
had one as part of our Constitution.
Apparently we don't.

From doing a bit of googling on the
subject it seems that although
Australia has signed the treaties that
make up the International Bill of Human Rights,
none of these treaties are legally binding
in Australia.

That means that the fundamental rights
and freedoms of everyone living in Australia
are not protected by law.

That's rather frightening.
Why don't we have a human rights act?

Could some one explain?

We are desperately in need of one as the authoritarians are becoming more and more determined to rule people with force, but I have a hard time trusting our current policy-makers for making a balanced and insightful act. This goes for any bill of rights also.

There have been a few articles on this topic this year:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7509
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7459
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7343

There seems to be a sudden interest in it as a result of the 2020 summit.

As I recall, all the articles argued against the idea of a bill of rights. Spender the author of the first article and a QC, seemed to be uncomfortable with the idea of writing laws like those found in a bill of rights. I gather he thought putting them in writing would be too restrictive because we could not change our mind later. I thought that was odd, coming from a lawyer.

But not as odd as the other two articles, also by lawyers. They said it was a bad idea because politicians were more trustworthy that judges (ie, ex lawyers). I guess they would know. This one sentence summary might of sacrificed some detail for conciseness, but I am sure that is the nub of their argument. It was all a bit bizarre.

None of the arguments presented in the articles rang true to me, but I won't repeat my reasons why here.

Foxy, you are quite right, Australia is a signatory to certain UN Treaties which supposedly guarantee our rights to freedom of expression, and this is the excuse given by the government for not implementing our own Bill of Rights.

Peter Costello, at the height of the mulesing and live export campaigns mounted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, threatened to invoke elements of the Trade Practices Act to silence animal rights protesters, but thankfully, got the push before he could do so. That would have been the "thin end of the wedge".

I believe Victoria has done quite a bit of work on human rights and civil liberties, it may be worth having a look for Victoria's Law Reform Commission material.

Cheers,
Nicky