The Australian Christian Lobby will continue its campaign against the introduction of a national Human Rights Act despite the recommendations of the National Human Rights Consultation Committee that such an act be introduced.
Chaired by Father Frank Brennan, the committee last week handed down its report in which it recommended that Australia adopt a national Human Rights Act covering everything from the right to freedom from forced work to the right of freedom of association and the right to due process in criminal proceedings.
Among a host of other recommendations, the committee also proposed giving High Court judges the power to make a “declaration of incompatibility” with any proposed act, expanding the functions of the Australian Human Rights Commission and the establishment of a joint parliamentary committee on human rights to review all bills in regard to human rights.
While the Opposition has said they are against the introduction of such an act, the Federal Government is yet to formally issue a response to the recommendations, although it has said it will respond to the recommendations by the end of the year.
The Australian Christian Lobby was among organisations which had lobbied against the introduction of such an act, saying to do so would involve a shift of policy-making power from parliament to unelected judges.
Jim Wallace, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), says despite the recommendations, the issue of whether Australia introduces a new human rights act is “far from dead”.
“There is still a very strong group of academics, of former high court judges, of former prime ministers and governor-generals and current churchmen and current politicians who are dead against this,” he says. “And so the debate is far from done.”
Mr Wallace, who has said that judges should not be given any new powers without a referendum, says he was surprised the recommendations of the committee went so far.
“We did think it was going to go short of recommending a charter – they were the indications we’d received – but in the end it went the other way…We would have been quite happy with the recommendation for an internal upper house committee that reviews legislation to check its compatibility with our international obligations but, of course, it’s gone well beyond that.”
He says that, whatever its shortfalls, democracy should not be compromised by shifting any power away from the parliament to unelected representatives “whether that is the judiciary of whether that’s the Human Rights Commission”.
Others who have been vocal in their opposition to the introduction of a Human Rights Act include former New South Wales Premier, Bob Carr, and former Prime Minister, John Howard.
The National Human Rights Consultation Committee, which was established by the Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland, held more than 70 round-table discussions at locations across the country and received more than 35,000 submissions.
Among those who have welcomed the recommendation such an act be introduced were the Human Rights Commission and lobby groups including Amnesty.
Human Rights Commission President Catherine Branson has urged the government to “act now” in implementing the commission’s recommendations.
“A Human Rights Act for Australia is another very important step towards making sure that human rights are better protected in Australia,” she said in a statement.
The commission also expressed its agreement with the committee’s findings that education on human rights should be given the “highest priority”.
The ACL, meanwhile, have collected about 15,000 signatures on an electronic petition opposing the introduction of a human rights charter and are calling on more people to sign it before they present it to the Federal Government. They’re also asking people to visit their local federal representative to lobby against the introduction of an act.
Mr Wallace says that any Christians who had observed what had happened in Victoria recently – where the lobby was involved in fighting a review of equal opportunity laws during which, it says, the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 was employed to threaten the right to religious freedom – “should realise that these charters of rights do hold quite a few problems for the Christian community”.
• National Human Rights Consultation
~ www.humanrightsconsultation.gov.au
• Australian Christian Lobby’s Make A Stand website
~ www.makeastand.org.au
• Australian Human Rights Commission
~ www.hreoc.gov.au
