Page 2212 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 16 August 2006
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This conference was run under the aegis of the faculty of law at the University of Melbourne. I think that it is very significant how our academic institutions, the faculties of law around Australia, have been at the forefront, as one would have expected, of this debate around the protection of human rights. Within the ACT, we were privileged to have Professor Hilary Charlesworth lead the consultative committee which investigated in the first instance a model for the protection of human rights within the territory which ultimately led to enactment of the Human Rights Act.
It has been, of course, the University of New South Wales—the Gilbert and Tobin centre associated with that university, headed by Professor George Williams—that has been at the forefront of a continuing debate around human rights and the need for a national bill of rights. Indeed, it was Professor Williams who was engaged by the Victorian government to lead the consultative process which was utilised or pursued in Victoria and which has led to the very recent passage in Victoria of a bill of rights, the incorporation into the law of Victoria of a charter of rights and responsibilities reflecting essentially the ACT Human Rights Act in the law of Victoria.
I think that is a very significant and substantial movement in relation to the acceptance of human rights by legislatures around Australia. The ACT and this Assembly should, I think, stand proudly and we should acknowledge on our own behalves the significant role which this Assembly has played in advancing discourse or debate on human rights and the fundamental role of human rights as part of the legislative structure of Australia. I had always hoped that the Human Rights Act, upon passage within the territory, would be a model or a debate that would then be picked up by other legislatures and other jurisdictions around Australia, but I had never anticipated or imagined that Victoria would be the next jurisdiction to accept how important it was that the states and the territories step into the void that has been left as a result of the absence of a national bill of rights in Australia.
We now have a bill of rights, the Human Rights Act, in the ACT essentially incorporating into the domestic law of the territory the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We have exactly the same process and procedure being followed now by the Victorian parliament, with enormous support from the Victorian community—in the same terms as was achieved in the ACT—for incorporating into the law of Victoria the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We now have, as I understand it, very active programs of investigation in both Tasmania and Western Australia following very much the same path to incorporate, hopefully, into the law of both Tasmania and Western Australia a human rights act or a bill of rights. I think there is a real expectation now that within the next year or two we will have moved to a situation where half the states and territories will have enacted bills of rights.
In that context it is interesting, I think, to reflect, as has been done through this conference, on the issues that continue to be faced in Australia by legislatures and communities in debating and coming to an understanding of the issues that we confront as a result of the attitude adopted throughout Australia traditionally in relation to whether to protect human rights legislatively or whether to rely on our existing structures and institutions. That is essentially the tension in the debate.
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