Should We Have a Bill of Rights? Essay

Submitted By Brendan163
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Good afternoon I am Brendan Jones and would like to thank you firstly for the opportunity to participate in this event. Australia is a modernised western society and is a signatory to all five international treaties that make up the International Bill of Human Rights, but, none of these treaties is legally binding in Australia, and there is not a Bill of Rights in the Australian Constitution. This means that the fundamental rights and freedoms of everyone living in Australia are not protected by law. In recent years the High Court has found that additional rights for individuals may be necessarily implied by the language and structure of the Constitution, but is not in any form of writing in the constitution.
So why should we include it in the Constitution and why is it so important? Bill of rights is a constitutional provision which protects the individual’s right from infringement by the legislature or the executive power. The most famous bill of rights belonging to America, although the Bill of rights for Australia would not take this exact form, for one example thou shall bear arms would conflict with the legislation of assault arms ban Without this right, people of Australia are at the discretionary power of the state and territory governments. University of NSW Faculty of Law senior research fellow Christopher Michaelson compared Queensland’s Anti Bikie Act with that of a dictatorial regime. It is this kind of act that is criminalising innocent people. This law states expand polices powers over innocent people, numerous lawyers have stated that these laws act on and can be used against any group in society. (ABC NEWS By Greg Barns Posted Wed 16 Oct 2013, 3:03pm AEDT ).
To rely on the benevolence or honesty of the Police Commissioner, Attorney-General or Government of the time is naivety in the extreme and fraught with danger. Many states around Australia have jumped on the bandwagon, such as that is the South Australian, Rann Governments SOCCA act and some have or are in the process of approving their own legislation each trying to outdo the other in terms of “toughness”. It is worth noting that only Victoria and the ACT have remained a part from the other states in the push for “anti-bikie” laws, the same two who are the only jurisdictions in Australia that have a locally legislated form of a Bill of Rights.

In regards to the new discriminatory, unconstitutional and tyrannical laws put forth by Campbell Newman in the state of Queensland in Australia that are rightfully being questioned and criticised here please note: "The Australian Constitution, which under Chapter 5, The States, recognises the rights of the individual States. Section 106 deals with the Saving of the States Constitutions, section 107 with saving the power of State Parliaments, section 108 with saving of State Laws, and section 109 with the inconsistency of laws, which says, “When a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid.” - Thus it can be seen that the new discriminatory tyrannical laws put forth by Campbell Newman in the state
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