A Bill of Rights for Australia

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the new anti-terror laws in Australia and how these impact Australian human rights. It examines what these new laws involve, what entrenching a Bill of Rights would involve and the possible outcomes of an entrenchment of the Australian Constitution. The author of the paper ultimately argues that a Bill of Rights is not necessary to protect the fundamental rights of the Australian people.

From the Paper:

"If a Bill of Rights were introduced into Australia, judges would have ultimate power in deciding what actually constitutes human rights (Kerby 1995). Instead of the parliament and the elected politicians deciding on the rights of the people, this would be left to judges (Kerby, 1995). Some argue that this is giving them too much power. It is said that middle aged, upper class and predominantly white males cannot possibly know what is best for all demographics of the Australian nation and have no way in determining the will of the people (Kerby, 1995). Others also believe that judiciary's are unreliable as the sole determiners of human rights as a Constitutional Bill of Rights would enable them to establish their own political agendas (Gibbs, 2000). In addition, their decisions would no doubt be made on personal morals, views and beliefs (Gibbs, 2000). Also there would be an increase of power for those with wealth. By this it is meant that it would be the wealthy who could afford the legal action to achieve their agendas in how the bill was interpreted (Malcolm ,1998)."

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