The dust from the landslide failure of the badly-worded Australian referendum of 1988 seems to have finally settled. Although discussion has taken place in the past to no effect, it appears as if the battle for an Australian Bill of Rights is reaching a climax.
‘The Land of Oz’ is the only remaining member of the Western world without such a document, whether constitutional or legislative, in effect on a national level. Urban legend says that the man responsible for drafting the document was sick on the day it was in production, but in truth, it is probably faith in the common law system and Senatorial checks and balances that has halted previous pushes.
But the Federal Attorney-General, Mr. Robert McClelland, has now moved in favour of a referendum. McClelland stated that religious tolerance, women’s rights, and indigenous living conditions could be promoted and protected by a document of Australia’s liberties.
He’s begun a national discussion on the issue, headed by Jesuit priest and law professor Father Frank Brennan, that calls for input on what kind of rights and responsibilities Australia wants to protect.
Other members of the leading committee will include former SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis, a speaker on pluralism, as well as former Northern Territory police commissioner Mick Palmer, and human rights advocate and lawyer Tammy Williams.
While many Australians may be pleased by the comeback of one of the nation’s biggest debates, non-pluralists may have to consider the double-edged sword that a Bill of Rights may represent. The religious tolerance component may end up much less a right and more of an imposition.
As one of the most “non-religious” nations in the West (30% at the last census), and perhaps one of the most religiously diverse, Christians particularly face the danger of political correctness. The pluralist and post-modernist l society of Australia could attempt the removal of one of Christ’s most fundamental teachings from allowed belief.
”Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.“
- John 14:1-6
Many “Pluralist Christians” (though clearly in contradiction with themselves and Christ) find it hard to justify their paradoxial ideals with this teaching. Many post-modernists detest it.
The stubborn support of post-modernists and pluralists for religious tolerance is far too absurd to be within reason – pushing religious tolerance to the point of intruding on non-pluralist religions is, by definition, religiously intolerant.
Yet society pushes onward in this direction. The tidal wave of political correctness, in all its inconsistency, continues to flatten the government’s capacity to make laws, pushing ‘discrimination’ further and further up its list of evils.
It’s any wonder that the Bill of Rights has not already been thrusted forward as ‘moral’ and ‘correct’.
But another question, one that applies to all Australians, should be considered – do we actually need to formalize our rights?
Where’s the call of the courts for more laws? Where, in this post-modernist world, does discrimination dare to lurk? What employer would risk denying a job on the grounds of race, or sex, or religion?
Certainly, our lack of a Bill of Rights is unusual, but perhaps the true anomaly is that Australia is the only nation with no need for it. Perhaps we are indeed unique in that respect.
Perhaps a Bill of Rights would present more of a danger than a safety.
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