Established by the enactment of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 on 1 January 1901, the Australian Constitution institutes the key functions of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Furthermore, Federation provided state and federal governments with specific powers to enact laws relating to trade, defence and immigration, and to promote nationalism. However, the privileged men responsible for Federation used the process of conventions to promote their biased views towards working class individuals and focused mainly on protecting their own interests; as a result the constitution does not explicitly include human rights protections. During federation, the appointed convention delegates of each British colony displayed …show more content…
Having a Bill of Rights might provide additional protection for these individual rights as neither common law nor our existing political processes sufficiently protect them. The USA’s situation is evident that a BOR does not necessary establish rights within the legal system. For example, the right to bear arms is embedded in America’s BOR as the second amendment. For a range of reasons, including the complicated process of exclusion of amendments, the United States government have been unable to address the issue of gun control, resulting in gun massacres. In contrast, Australia’s legal system uphold the right to enable the people to change the constitution via a referendum under s.128. Furthermore the conventions of responsible government protects our rights: after the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre, gun legislation was significantly reformed as the views of Australian towards gun control changed and the Australian legal system utilised the powers of the legislative, executive and judicial arms to implement gun control. This demonstrates that Australia (via its respective government body) exercised each of their role to uphold better protection and maintain social cohesion by protecting fundamental rights to promote social progress in comparison to the United States. Through division of powers, governmental bodies are provided with a framework of power sharing so that when problems arise they are enabled to work
Australia's federation came about through a process of deliberation, consultation and debate. Before 1901 Australia did not exist as a nation. It was six British colonies, which were self-governed, but under the power of the British Parliament. The colonies were almost like six separate countries. In the 1880s there was so much disorganisation within this system, which caused a belief that a national government was, needed to deal with issues such as trade, defence and immigration saw popular support for federation grow.
The United States Bill of Rights came into being as a result of a promise made by the Fathers of Confederation to the states during the struggle for ratification of the Constitution in 1787-88. A great number of the states made as a condition for their ratification, the addition of amendments, which would guarantee citizens protection of their rights against the central government. Thus, we have a rather interesting situation in which the entrenchment of a bill of rights in the American Constitution was done by the virtual demand of the states, they themselves fearing a central government which was not legally constrained and restricted as far as its powers were concerned.
Throughout the world, in history and in present day, injustice has affected all of us. Whether it is racial, sexist, discriminatory, being left disadvantaged or worse, injustice surrounds us. Australia is a country that has been plagued by injustice since the day our British ancestors first set foot on Australian soil and claimed the land as theirs. We’ve killed off many of the Indigenous Aboriginal people, and also took Aboriginal children away from their families; this is known as the stolen generation. On the day Australia became a federation in 1901, the first Prime Minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, created the White Australia Policy. This only let people of white skin colour migrate to the country. Even though Australia was the first country to let women vote, women didn’t stand in Parliament until 1943 as many of us didn’t support female candidates, this was 40 years after they passed the law in Australian Parliament for women to stand in elections. After the events of World War Two, we have made an effort to make a stop to these issues here in Australia.
Australia became an independent nation on January 1, 1901 when the British Parliament passed certain legislation allowing the six Australian colonies to regulate their own authority as part of the Commonwealth of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia was established, and remains as, a constitutional monarchy, meaning that it was founded with a written constitution, and that the Australian head of state is also head of the Commonwealth (Queen Elizabeth II.) The Australian Constitution was initially drafted by several men in the 1890’s though it wasn't passed by the British Parliament until 1900 as part of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act. By definition the Australian Constitution is a composition
The merits of both the adversarial and inquisitorial system will be explored throughout this paper. The Australian rule of law best describes as all law should be applied equally and fairly. The five vital operations of the rule of law includes fairness, rationality, predictability, consistency, and impartially. The adversarial system adopts these operations by having a jury decide on the verdict and the judge being an impartial decision maker. In contrast, the inquisitorial system relies heavily on the judge. This can result in abusive power and bias of the judge when hearing evidence and delivering verdicts. The operations of the rule of law determine why the rule of law is best served by the adversarial system in Australia.
The Bill of Rights was first originated from England, where it asserts for constitutional protection for individuals, and lists different types of prohibitions on government power (Bill of rights institute, 2016). The action of how Australia became a Federation, it involved complicated constitutional conventions, and how the constitutional founders addressed the complications of enacting a Bill of Rights, they decided not to enact it. McClelland (2002, pg. 138) describes how there were proposals that were rejected to incorporate fundamental rights in Australia’s constitution. Australians basic right were protected by common law, however instead, it was a mixture of
There have been many humanitarians that strive to help countries suffering with human right abuses. People think that the help from IGOs and NGOs will be enough to stop human rights violations. However, it hasn’t been effective. Every day, more and more human rights violations happen. The problem is escalating. People, including children, are still being forced to work to death, innocent civilians are still suffering the consequences of war, and families are struggling to stay firm together. Despite the efforts from the people, IGOs, and NGOs, In the year 2100, human rights abuse will not end.
The conditions of Australia’s immigration detention policies have also been cause for concern for probable contraventions of Articles 7 and 10 of the ICCPR. Whilst in Sweden, asylum seekers are afforded free housing whilst their applications are being processed, Australia’s methods are much more callous. Under the Pacific Solution, maritime asylum seekers are sent to impoverished tropical islands with no monitoring by human rights organisations allowed (Hyndman and Mountz, 2008). The UNHCR criticised Australia’s offshore processing centres stating that “significant overcrowding, cramped living quarters, unhygienic conditions, little privacy and harsh tropical climate contribute to the poor conditions of… Nauru and Papua New Guinea” (Morales
Indigenous Australian land rights have sparked controversy between Non Indigenous and Indigenous Australians throughout history. The struggle to determine who the rightful owners of the land are is still largely controversial throughout Australia today. Indigenous Australian land rights however, go deeper than simply owning the land as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have established an innate spiritual connection making them one with the land. The emphasis of this essay is to determine how Indigenous Australian land rights have impacted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, highlighting land rights regarding the Mabo v. the State of Queensland case and the importance behind today’s teachers understanding and including Indigenous
Indigenous Australians began to be robbed of their rights and freedoms when the Europeans colonized Australia. Since then, Aboriginal people and Indigenous supporters have taken steps towards equality and reconciliation.
According to Thomas Jefferson, all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights. Unalienable rights are rights given to the people by their Creator rather than by government. These rights are inseparable from us and can’t be altered, denied, nullified or taken away by any government, except in extremely rare circumstances in which the government can take action against a particular right as long as it is in favor of the people’s safety. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America mentions three examples of unalienable rights: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. I believe these rights, since they are acquired by every human being from the day they are conceived, should always be respected, but being realistic, most of the time, the government intervenes and either diminishes or
The decision for Australia to adopt the Federal system was on the principle of which the State’s governments wanted to keep their power. For this reason there was the separation of powers between the newly formed Commonwealth government and the existing State governments. At a constitutional level, there are rulings in which the powers are separated, these rulings due to disputes have slightly changed since 1901. These changes all fell towards the one government, the Commonwealth (Federal) government. However this was not just a landslide event, the Constitution of Australia set up this imbalance of powers between the Commonwealth and State governments. We will explore this further in the points discussed later in this essay.
The case against a Bill of Rights as shown above includes the fact that it is foreign to our traditions and Australia has survived to date through its existing protection of basic rights. It is argued that a Bill of Right may provide too much power to the judges.
This presentation was about the ongoing state of LGBT+ rights in Australia. This country is considered first world; however, the gay population suffer a lot of discrimination. Usually, most traditional families do not recognize their gay sons, and this is one of the reasons why they hide their sexuality. In addition, this minority is not allowed either to have a legal marriage or adopt a child. Consequently, the LGBT+ people do not receive benefits from the government and they have a high rate of suicide and depression.
The Human Rights Commission (2014) state that ‘ Australia was a founding member of the UN and played a prominent role in the negotiation of the UN Charter in 1945. Australia was also one of eight nations involved in drafting the Universal Declaration.’ An advantage of introducing a Bill of Rights would be that all the basic rights and fundamental freedoms stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be incorporated into Australia’s legal system. A disadvantage would be that the Bill of Rights would interfere with Australia’s international obligations, for example the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The State Library of New South Wales (2011) states that ‘Australia is currently party to seven of the nine core international human rights.’ If a Bill of Rights was introduced into the Australian legal system, it would mean that all the basic rights and fundamental freedoms stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be protected by the Australian legal system. Although this would also make it harder for Australia to continue to try and incorporate all nine core international human rights instruments in their legal system. A recommendation would be to try and incorporate all nine core international human rights instruments before considering the idea of a Bill of Rights.