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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (18 November) . . Page.. 4246 ..
MR STANHOPE (continuing):
principles. They are a part of our history and our culture and we have chosen to adopt them freely as a free exercise of Australian sovereignty. No country can claim the perfect human rights record and Australia does do better than most, but we can't afford to be complacent. We can't take our fundamental rights and freedom for granted in the 21st century any more than our forebears and ancestors could in the centuries that went before.
In recent years, the basic values of tolerance and respect we took for granted have been put in doubt, and the assumption that our fundamental rights are protected have been shown to be false. It is true that we enjoy high standards of representative government, an independent judiciary and respect for the rule of law. But, in truth, Australia is a human rights backwater. In the common law world, Australia is the only country that has neither a constitutional nor statutory bill of rights. The piecemeal and partial recognition of rights in the common law and in various statutes is no longer a satisfactory basis on which to address rights issues. Without a yardstick against which to measure rights, we risk the whittling away of rights protection.
In 1973 when Senator Lionel Murphy introduced the first Human Rights Bill into the federal parliament he observed:
Although we believe these rights to be basic to our democratic society, they now receive remarkably little legal protection in Australia. What protection is given by the Australian Constitution is minimal and does not touch the most significant of these rights. The common law is powerless to protect them against the written laws and regulations made by Parliament, by Executive Government under delegated legislative authority, and by local government and other local authorities. The common law exists only in the interstices of statutory legislation.
Members, the issue of human rights protection affects us all in our every day lives-at home, at work, at school and in our neighbourhood. In 1948 Eleanor Roosevelt, speaking about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said:
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home-so close and small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.
As elected representatives, Mr Speaker, we have a responsibility to serve and protect the interests of the whole community, recognising that while we have the diverse origins and different views we share one destiny. The mark of our progress and our humanity is the extent to which we respect and protect fundamental human rights. This is not simply the concern of the few or the vulnerable. Human rights belong to everyone, and we are all diminished by breaches of human rights.
The object of this bill is to give recognition in legislation to basic rights and freedoms. It is a clear and unequivocal commitment by this government and by this community about
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