The Federal government has rejected a Human Rights Charter.
This is good news for those who were concerned about it's potential for the introduction of a radical left-wing agenda by stealth.
It is bad news for those who think that the current system does not do enough to protect human rights.
Will the Labor government's compromise solution satisfy both sides or no-one?

"This is good news for those who were concerned about it's potential for the introduction of a radical left-wing agenda by stealth".

Well you must be disappointed that Rudd knocked it back Proxy - now you will have to revise your paranoia about left wing agendas and by stealth no less.

Good grief, get a grip.

No surprise- it was supposed to fail from the start.

You see, Rudd's government knew they were expected to actually look into a rights motion which they made such song and dance about when they were in opposition:
But knew they would be treading thin ice with the conservative vote to just throw one up.

So they did quite a clever maneuver- arranged an *investigation* committee run by the LEAST credible rights advocate on the planet- a loony neocon jesuit Reverend refugee advocate and anti-abortion/anti-euthanasia advocate! Such a combination would surely spell the antithesis of most Australians one way or another.

The Left would have to concede this extremely conservative individual a fair choice for 'balance' on principle that the rights ARE supposed to represent everyone, and its eventual failure would have been tolerated as a sincere attempt to make it happen.

In other words, the government simply put on a show!

Dear Proxy,

The Australian newspaper had this to say:

"There is no crisis of rights in Australia.
We know our country is robustly free and most
people have a high civic IQ...

What has triumphed, and we owe this to the
Prime Minister - is a more politically
literate view, a wisdom that understands that
when you codify rights you freeze possibilities..."

The article summed it up beautifully:

"The Prime Minister understands that the ebb and
flow of common law, free elections and freedom of
speech will help keep us freer than lawyer's
arguments over every word and clause in a charter..."

"It's the ethos of a country that counts, the
spirit of the people."

I doubt if anyone is going to complain, except
for Geoffrey R. of course. Although that
depends how well his book sells.

Straight out of "Yes Minister" !
Ephisode 12.

Any human rights, should come with a use by date, or you end up like America. Slavery was never a part of our society, so why a human rights. You are free to do any thing at all, that is legal.

Desmond has a good point.

There are lots of 'rights' that may quickly prove to be faulty or unfitting a changing society on sincere grounds.

Probably the best example is the question of the right to develop property, what property one may own exclusively or collectively-only, and liberty from government.

Why? The US recession seeing the government desperately bailing out or nationalizing companies to try to reinvigorate the economy.

The above is not even meant to be a rhetorical question- it's a serious question to everyone on which rights are more important (as both ways in the above clearly infringe upon potential rights and liberties of others), and that being the case what happens when you just pick one and insist it is inalienable.

Posted by Foxy, Thursday, 22 April 2010 6:11:35 PM
" ... I doubt if anyone is going to complain, ... "

I think people need to ask themselves the basics.

What are the Rights enshrined in Law of the Australian Person?
Hmmm ...

And what are the set of Human Rights as enshrined in International Law?

And what do some of the great/notable figures of history hold up as ideals before us as something of our "shared Humanity?"

..

A couple of thorny ones for Australia.

1. The Right to Medical Care
2. The Right to Legal Representation

..

The reality of what we have of course is "The A.ustralian M.oney grubbers A.ssociation" (That applies to some doctors) and wig parasites (that applies to most lawyers.)

As Pelican would probably be aware, and to throw up an example, a psychiatrist, of which even our armed forces have far too few according to their white paper of some time ago, receives something like $AU220 an hour from medicare, but members of the a.m.a. usually charge at or around $AU360 per hour and demand it to be paid in advance. Of course, most of the most needy only receive $650+ per fortnight so, well, they just miss out.

If comprehensive medical treatment was to be an Enshrined Australian Human Right, then the doctors and the dentists would have to regulated.

As for the lawyers, Jesus ....... Christ - "remorseless mercantilisation" to quote one High Court judge and that's being polite.

..

If you are going to regulate wages for the workers on one side of the equation then basic logic dictates that you have to regulate business and services on the other. If not, when coupled with "common as muck" human nature and you end up with financial meltdown situations.

And that to me is a fundamental reason why the establishment does not want Human Rights, because they simply do not want to be regulated, do not want to be held to account and do not want to operate in a transparent fashion.

A charter of Human Rights is worthless until the issue of Indigenous sovereignty is addressed, the Crown doesn't own this country, it's a military occupation which is still ongoing, there's no moral authority much less a legal basis for making these kinds of rules for Australians.
Furthermore until the issue of Genocide of the Indigenous people is acknowledged any talk of Human rights or a "Humane society" is just a joke.
Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations, which placated the White people who pretend to care about Aboriginals but was just a cover up.
Assimilation is Genocide, there's no two ways about it.
All the Andrew Bolts and Keith Windschuttles of the world can write their columns and Tomes but they're a forlorn hope for the establishment, no one takes the Right seriously.
Self Hating White Australians can believe in Genocide when it's other White people from far off lands being accused, it's so easy for them to hate people from their own group and sell them down the river but they'll never use the "G word" if the finger might turn to point at them.

It is pointless to try to include any features relating to the "occupation"
by Europeans of Australia. How far do you go back ?
The whole world is made up of migrating peoples.
Even the aborigines were not the first as they displaced the earlier
arrivals. I doubt if we know how many waves of migration occurred.

All that can be done is look to the future not the past.
I am not convinced that putting it all down in black and white to be
enshrined forever will in fact work.

Well, for me, the Bill of rights would at least recognize proper sovereignty of native-title aboriginal land and a much better extent of Sovereignty from Australian policy (eg NT intervention).

Then, I would demand more rights for local citizens to to VETO developments and policies that they do not support, with no less than great public need or safety (as conceded by the highest relevant court and then indicated by a local referendum to the broader public) to overrule them.

The right for citizens to initiate binding referenda in any field of governance or society (with the same constitutional rules and limitations as the Swiss- which is basically nothing at all except a fair intervention by courts if it infringes other human rights).

The right to NO INTERNET FILTER, free information, NO APEC, and NO WYD2008- the right to Free speech (not like SA's elections), the right to abortions and euthanasia, the right NOT to appear at the polling stations during elections, and the right to never go to war unless we are actually invaded or the referendum the government puts forward to go to war actually passes with a VERY high majority.

And that's just the beginning of rights I'm sure most Australians actually WANT or need (along with a huge swath of better consumer rights).

Without these a bill of rights is garbage.

King Hazza, the Australia First Party is campaigning on those issues, they're even open to the idea of fielding Indigenous candidates as well, check them out maybe you could help them in the upcoming election.

Yep, as do One Nation- I have checked them both out (when I said I check all candidates, I mean it!). And I must admit, although I am not too thrilled by the extent they actually go on about race/culture-relations issues in their speeches, I am inclined to support their CIR policy and pro-public-rights, sovereignty and security stances.

As such, they sit about middlish on my ballot paper- I can't follow the multiculturalism opposition priority so much, and can't forgive ON's opposition to native title, reconciliation and ingigenous sovereignty rights (and AFP's lack of detail of stance on the issue at all) puts them below any more liberalistic Direct-democracy/public-accountability/rights advocate in my area.

And although people insist on voting for the Democrats, aside from them not actually having a binding CIR policy at all as ON/AFP (but merely non-binding symbolic one- which has no point), they're just TOO liberal-right (and their crumbling on the Telstra sell-off was unforgivable).

At least we have the candidate numbering system (probably the only thing Australia's voting system can actually boast).

As I understand it AFP is pitching itself as a "Popular front" type group for a range of tendencies from nationalism to libertarianism, protectionism and so forth. It'd be a matter of running something up the flagpole and seeing if it'll fly.
I suspect the "Blood and soil" element is only the part of their platform that gets the most attention from the Media, in any event it's not going to be something that will make or break the party unless they insist on playing "the Game" like One Nation did.
One thing is for sure AFP is less likely to turn into a divisive BNP type farce than any other nominally "Right" group, their "Neither Islam nor Israel" stance is to be commended.
It's the people who make the Party, if you want to influence outcomes get involved would be my advice.