Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement in connection with the report.

Leave granted.

I rise to speak on the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into Australia's human rights framework and, specifically, on the dissenting report presented by the coalition members of the committee. At the heart of the majority report is the recommendation that the government pursue a human rights act based on the model put forward by the Australian Human Rights Commission. Coalition members reject this flawed proposal. We consider it both unnecessary and dangerous.

As our former chief justice, Harry Gibbs, once noted: 'If society is tolerant and rational, it does not need a bill of rights. If it is not, no bill of rights will preserve it.' A human rights act or a bill of rights has been seriously proposed at least 10 times before in Australia's history. It was deliberately rejected by the framers of our Constitution and has been rejected by every government since 1901. Once again, the proponents of a human rights act, through their submissions to this inquiry, have failed to demonstrate that our current systems are not providing adequate protections for human rights or that their reform model would achieve preferable outcomes.

Australia has an enviable human rights record and historically played a pivotal role in the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The AHRC's proposed act and the example bill presented in this report are a dangerous departure from those human rights agreements that Australia is treaty-bound to adhere to. It selectively and deliberately devalues internationally recognised protections for the freedoms of thought, conscience, religion and belief.

The AHRC proposed that the right to not be subjected to torture be reinterpreted in a new right to not be treated in a degrading way, as a tricky way of giving preference to non-discrimination protections over individual freedoms. It also invents a new, open-ended, single-limitation clause on all rights, rather than adopting the finely calibrated approach in the international covenant, which outlines the circumstances in which some rights may be limited and what rights can never be restricted. Coalition members fear that this departure from international jurisprudence would result in excessive restrictions being placed on the freedoms of religion and expression in Australia.

A human rights act as proposed would weaken our parliamentary democracy and politicise our judiciary. Australia's democracy is robust, open and vigorous. This parliament is the best institution to defend human rights and to debate and determine the balance of competing rights through legislation. An act along the lines proposed by the Labor and Independent majority on the committee would insert abstract and vague concepts into our law that would require judicial interpretation. It would represent a surrender of this parliament's responsibility to defend human rights to an unelected and unaccountable judiciary. Coalition members consider the proposed act as a convenient way for parliamentarians to avoid making difficult decisions. It would entangle judges in controversies about contentious moral and political causes, and it would create American-style conflicts between the judiciary and the executive.

An act of this nature would also make it harder for Australian governments to keep our citizens safe and our borders secure. We have seen this in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom government's attempts to deport foreign criminals have been thwarted by their human rights act. Camilo Soria unlawfully remained in the UK after the expiration of a student visa. UK courts determined that Soria had a pet cat and that therefore the deportation order breached his rights to a private and family life under their Human Rights Act. A similar judgement relied on a failed asylum seeker's local gym membership and participation in a five-a-side football team to determine that he had established a private life in the United Kingdom. We fear what a similar act would mean for the interpretation and implementation of the laws that we make in this place.

One only has to look at the human rights acts enacted in Victoria, Queensland and here in the ACT to see how this is not a silver bullet. These acts have made little difference to human rights in these parts of Australia. These jurisdictions were amongst the worst offenders against human rights during the pandemic. A human rights act is clearly not a guarantee of achieving protection of human rights. The United States Bill of Rights did not prevent the practice of slavery. The French declaration of the rights of man did not prevent the bloodshed and summary justice of the Reign of Terror. The impressive rights espoused in the Constitution of the Soviet Union did not prevent the Great Purge or the gulags. Individual freedoms are protected extensively within the constitution of North Korea, yet the nation has no contemporary parallel with respect to the extent of its human rights abuses.

Those proposing and supporting the adoption of a human rights act in Australia have the burden of proving both that our current systems are not providing adequate protection of human rights and that their reform model would achieve preferable outcomes. Contrary to the views of the government members of the committee, coalition members maintain that neither of these aspects have been demonstrated by any of the submissions made during the inquiry. In fact, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that an act could have a negative impact on human rights. Coalition members share the concern of many submitters that the proposed act is unnecessary, dangerous and will erode the rights of Australians.

The list of rights selected within the bill proposal presents an inconsistency with those protected under article 18 and article 7 of the ICCPR. It devalues internationally recognised protections for the freedoms of thought, conscience, religion and belief. Article 18 of the ICCPR mandates freedom of religion or belief. These rights are non-derogable—that is, they cannot be suspended even in a state of emergency. Article 18 does not appear in the AHRC's proposed human rights act. Instead, it is replaced by a new, redefined approach. Coalition members consider that this would represent a significant departure from the robust religious freedom protections outlined in article 18, particularly in relation to sections 3 and 4. Preference has clearly been given to non-discrimination protections over individual freedoms, despite these freedoms being regarded by the ICCPR as absolute.

Many stakeholders submitted to the inquiry their concerns that this model does not have sufficient evidence on the ICCPR when it came to religious freedom. Given that Australia's protections for the freedom of thought, conscience and religion are already well regarded as insufficient, this proposed approach would be a significant backward step in protecting human rights within Australia. Coalition members are concerned that an act of this nature could be utilised as a trojan horse for social agendas that cannot be progressed successfully through the political process.

Former Labor Attorney-General Robert McClelland noted in the 2010 Human Rights Framework:

… human rights in Australia would not be served by an approach that is divisive or creates an atmosphere of uncertainty or suspicion in the community.

I fear that the recommendations of the committee will result in this sort of divisive approach being pursued by the government. I encourage the Attorney-General to consider what next steps are truly in the national interests. Does the government wish to make meaningful, incremental and bipartisan improvements to Australia's Human Rights Framework or does the government wish to embrace the AHRC's bizarre reimagining of human rights, with key rights deleted and absolute rights not recognised as such?

On behalf of the coalition members of the committee, I want to thank everyone who engaged with the committee's inquiry process, the committee secretariat for their tireless efforts in supporting our work, and the committee members, who sat through those hearings and debated the outcomes of this report. The coalition members' rejection of the human rights act proposal reflects a commitment to uphold Australia's proud tradition of human rights while safeguarding the primacy of this parliament and protecting the rights of all Australians.

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