Consultation news
Many views shared in Melbourne
Following on from the Canberra roundtables, where we heard about the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT), we were keen to hear from Melburnians about how living with the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) may have shaped their views on people’s rights and responsibilities.
The setting for our roundtable was the historic Hotel Windsor, where Australia's Constitution was drafted between February and March of 1898. The history and eminence of the hotel was not lost on us, or the participants.
To get us underway, we were welcomed by the Honourable Rob Hulls MP, the Victorian Attorney-General, who spoke to us about the benefits of having enshrined principles. He reinforced the importance of community consultations and he challenged those who stood against a human rights instrument.
As the Consultation continued, we heard many, strong arguments from opponents of a charter. One participant pointed out that those who were against a charter were often falsely represented as being against human rights. Whereas in reality, their concern with a human rights charter was that it might pass too much power to the unelected judiciary. As an alternative, some suggested increasing individual laws specifically targeting rights, while most seemed keen to see better civics education.
One moving moment was when a person spoke of how making peace and withdrawing from war was a lynchpin for sustaining human rights in Australia. In their words, “Unless we do some thing about war, we will do nothing as a human race.”
We would like to thank the Melbourne participants for their stimulating discussion; we were humbled by the honesty and emotion with which people shared their views.
Frank Brennan, Mary Kostikidis, Tammy Williams and Philip Flood