Human Rights - a pressing issue
At first, this might seem to involve larger and more universally
important issues than South Australia can encompass. But this is not
so. Read on.
On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For historical reasons principally concerned with the protection that
the Common Law gives to all citizens, the UK and Australia (among
others) decided that it was unnecessary to install a separate
declaration. Unlike Australia, England does not have a
constitution into which such a declaration could be placed, in any case.
The NewMatilda organisation
(that's right - the title IS derived from "waltzing matilda") is
concerned about the direction our country is taking, with more and more
freedoms and rights we used to take for granted, removed or under
threat. Among other things you will find on their site, you can
download a
Draft Human Rights Act for Australia.
There are basically three ways of approaching the introduction of a
human rights ethic into our legislature. THE way is to
incorporate human rights into the Constitution as has been done in the THE BILL OF RIGHTS:
Amendments 1-10 of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Given the dismal record of attempts to change our Australian
Constitution, a second way is to enact a federal Act of Parliament
which confers basic human rights on all citizens - that is what
NewMatilda's Draft Bill is about. A third way is very mild and doesn't
appear to do very much. The Australian Capital Territory has
enacted the Human Rights Act 2004, which requires a Commisioner to:
review the effect of
Territory laws on human rights and report in writing to the
Attorney-General (which is later tabled in the Legislative Assembly);
provide human rights education; and
advise the Attorney-General on anything relevant to the operation of the Act.
Note the absence of any overt general declaration -
the Act only applies to other Acts which might be enacted which might
offend against human rights principles. Even then, the ACT parliament
isn't obliged to DO anything except consider the Commisioner's comments.
However, modest though it is, it's a start. Sandra Kanck, Democrat
Member of the South Australian Legislative Council, introduced
just such a modest Bill to the SA parliament. The Labor and Coalition Parties in South Australia treated that Bill with contempt. One might well ask whether such behaviour is appropriate of people allegedly representing their electors.
The
fight for the recognition of the need for all authorities and
organisations to respond in accordance with sound human rights
principles goes on.
Contact us: admin@sos-sa.org.au
Your "human rights"
It's really easy to say that if you are a law-abiding citizen - ie you are innocent - no harm will come to you. Unfortunately, that is just the level of complacency the control freaks in Federal and State governments need.
Save Our
State South Australia Inc