speeches


DATE 25/7/09

Charter of Human Rights – Speech to the resolution at the State Labor Conference 2009

Human rights are a minefield of morals, ethics, priorities, balance, right, wrong and grey areas. We all instinctually want to have rights and we want them to be valued, protected and respected by those around us. Rights are what make us feel the security of being a man or woman amongst equals. Without them society all too quickly falls into patterns of dominance, imbalance and structuralised bigotry.

But is the enshrining of human rights in a Charter the smartest way to give tangible authority to our rights? Wrapping up a notion as ambiguous as who has what right to do what to who with our judiciary, our legislature and our entire system of democracy may very well be fraught with more dangers than it actually manages to overcome.

There are many reasons to support this resolution, the most basic of which is an often blind faith that anything to do with advancing human rights is fundamentally the right thing to do. Not supporting such measures is often seen as some admission of bigotry or a desire for power and we are therefore often too scared to question the methods and the consequences.

There are also just as many reasons to not support this resolution. When we can separate our need to protect and advance our rights and look clinically at what a charter would actually achieve and, simultaneously, undermine the choice to support it is not so clear.

My role as a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission has allowed me a warts and all view of organised crime in this country. Whether we like it or not, the advancing of human rights will always tend to advance the rights of criminals and, unfortunately, their opportunities to use these rights to further their criminal activity.

It is in this context that I am unable to fully support a charter of human rights in Tasmania, until all ambiguities can be understood and rectified – a feat that may well be impossible.

Whenever the ambiguous notion of human rights is further enshrined into our systems of governance and review there are further mechanisms that hinder effective law enforcement. And crime is the most opportunistic and manipulative of social demons, exploiting any loophole that may present itself.

A recent delegation by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission visited several countries in order to gain perspective on their efforts to combat organised crime. The issue of human rights and a charter presented itself in each country and the response was consistent – that such legislated measures towards advancing human rights always result in increased obstacles to effectively fighting organised crime.

The delegation report detailed the need for an increase in information sharing across government agencies and across national jurisdictions as a key component of fighting organised crime, which knows no such borders. However, they quite rightly pointed out that any attempt to increase the sharing of information is met with fear about how this may manifest into an invasion of privacy. These fears don’t seem to give much credit to benefits that stem for allowing this information to flow properly, with appropriate checks and balances.

The report also talks about the dangers experienced in some countries where human rights legislation, specifically those that deal with protection of personal property, making the confiscation of proceeds of crime more complicated as a consequence.

The interpretation of a right to freedom of association is overly stretched by some groups, making the banning of criminal groups and membership to them impossibly long. Australia has recently experienced the need to classify some groups in this way. How would we have responded it we had been told it would take 6 years to criminalise membership to terrorist groups in Australia or outlawed bikie gangs? Whose rights would have been best served then – the members of such groups or the broader community?

How can we possibly enact appropriate legislation to protect ourselves from the sophisticated methods and objectives of organised crime if a charter makes it ever more impossible to stymie their efforts? Does this really serve the purpose of protecting and respecting everyone’s rights?

Is not the enforcement of law, the protection of our citizens from crime and criminals and the measured punishment of those who breach these laws just as important as protecting the rights of general population? Is not the right to be free from the negative effects of criminal activity equally a right to be protected?

Should we not place more faith in the multiple layers of government, horizontally and vertically, judicial and elected, that we already have? Do we not have a strong history of protecting those rights that are meant to be protected and correcting injustices and inconsistencies as they arise? I believe that we do and therefore to further promote this issue at this time to the detriment of proper law enforcement should not be the highest priority.

Until a system can be proposed that makes clear and transparent all of these ambiguities and possibilities, until we can define rights and understand consequences, a charter will not help to serve its objectives.

I can not support the resolution.