Bills of rights work in favour of minority groups who wish to push their values on the majority. They work in conjunction with and give teeth to anti-discrimination and anti-vilification laws. The liberty to bring up our children with our values is definitely under threat.
The People’s Charter, if successful, will be attacked on the grounds that it reflects majoritarian intolerance.
But does the view of the people matter? Is not the will of the people the core of democracy?
Will we reach the point with a Bill of Rights that unelected judges in this country will make decisions based on international right’s laws grounded in The Hague or Helsinki where an un-elected tribunal has made a 5-4 decision on a point of right’s law? (e.g. the age at which a compulsory value judgment must be made to assess an order for termination of life for the common good of society.)
Say NO to a bill of rights. Say YES to The People’s Charter www.thepeoplescharter.net.au
OK, but surely we can also use a bill of rights to protect our liberties and fight decisions made against us?
Yes, certainly we should but remember that the – often protracted – case against you will be government funded while you will have to meet your own expenses and if you lose your case and go to appeal that can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars and more if you lose as you may be paying the costs of the other side as well.
So what about human rights legislation being used on behalf of the ordinary person exercising common freedoms? Useless, as the legislation is there to protect the minority groups.
“The agency director said that stigmatizing or discriminating against majorities is ‘not real discrimination’ and dismissed the man’s objections with laugher saying, ‘Discrimination is something that by definition affects minorities.”
The attitude by some judges who propound bills of rights is scary. The Chief Justice of Canada after a 5-4 ruling referred disparagingly to other countries – such as Australia – as “self-proclaimed democracies” because they couldn’t reach the same divine outcome that her court could. (p93 Don’t Leave us with the Bill ed. Julian Leeser and Ryan Haddrick)
Say NO to a bill of rights. Say YES to The People’s Charter www.thepeoplescharter.net.au
I think the biggest thing to be scared of in outcomes is that minority rights will trump or override individual liberties and we have already seen ridiculous instances of this e.g. when people running guest houses are told they cannot choose to only have couples without children – even when their facility is clearly not suitable or safe for children. Now these kinds of decisions are already made under anti-discrimination law but will be worse with a Bill of Rights.
Say NO to a bill of rights. Say YES to The People’s Charter www.thepeoplescharter.net.au
The principle objection to an Australian Bill of Rights is that it would hand power to an un-elected judiciary and ultimately result in the death of democracy. Some would argue that this would be a good thing, that governments elected by the people for the people cannot be trusted to make right decisions.
Now democracy has its flaws to be sure but it’s a long way ahead of whatever is in second place.
Say NO to a bill of rights. Say YES to The People’s Charter
You know, one of the great qualities about Australians is our passion for a fair-go and our generosity in passing around the hat when someone is down on their luck. That’s mateship. We’re good at that because we feel for them and we’ve been known to really dig deep into our pockets for genuine hardship. Of course we also rubbish people in a mateship way – and unfortunately sometimes not so mateship – and we don’t really like tall poppies if they’re a bit up themselves. But hey, generally we’ve integrated others into our society pretty well and people adapt well to our society because of these values. Naturally we have kept our laid-back casual attitudes – she’ll be right mate – and this often is reflected in children of ethnic origins often eclipsing our Aussie kids in terms of academic excellence.
But this bill of rights, this threatens our cool. We like our fair-go. And it looks as if with specific minority groups pushing their own agendas we might lose some of our traditions that we cherish. Some of pretty fundamental attitudes and values are at risk. If I want to restrict my guest room to couples without children, why shouldn’t I? If I choose not to rent my room to a gay couple, why shouldn’t I have that choice? And if I want to belong to a men’s club, why should women be admitted? And OK, if Ned Flanders wants to send his kids to a religious school and pay for it and the school is forced to employ a male homosexual teacher, why shouldn’t he get upset?
Let’s toss out any bill of rights. It threatens a fair-go for all. Sign up for The People’s Charter – that’s right, just put thepeoplescharter and anything you like after it plus .au and you’ll get into it (but if you remember it is .net.au) or just google the peoples charter Australia and you’ll get it. Hey, pass it on to your friends to log in and your enemies will probably sign it too!
On page 97 of Don’t Leave Us with the Bill: The case against and Australian Bill of Rights edited by Julian Leeser and Ryan Haddrick, The Menzies Research Centre 2009 the authors argue three broad objections against an Australian Bill of Rights, that it would
- Undermine national and democratic sovereignty
- Perverse outcomes of law and policy
- Not effective at protecting rights anyway
In the majority opinion, Judge Wilkinson wrote,
A partially born child is among the weakest, most helpless beings in our midst and on that account exerts a special claim on our protection… The fact is that we — civilized people — are retreating to the haven of our Constitution to justify dismembering a partly born child and crushing its skull. Surely centuries hence, people will look back on this gruesome practice done in the name of fundamental law by a society of high achievement. And they will shudder.
For full story see: http://www.lifenews.com/state4262.html
Now this is a good story but how can it be that 5 judges voted to overturn the ban decided by the government and therefore the people?
How can it be that un-elected judges can override the will of the people?
How can it be that in the face of such a condemnation (“…and they will shudder”) from a moral point of view, 5 judges can just vote on a point of what they consider to be good law and ignore murder?
And we in Australia are considering handing over powers via a Bill of Rights to an un-elected judiciary?
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