Does Australia Need a Bill of Rights?

Running head: INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
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1INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Introduction
A Bill of Rights is a list of the fundamental rights of citizens of a country. It exists in
order to protect the rights of individuals from being violated by the state or by citizens. A Bill of
Rights can further be well-established or unfixed. An entrenched Bill of Rights is contained
within the constitution of the nation, further implying that it cannot be altered by an act of
parliament but only by referendum. Reports of Way (2015) have noted that an unfixed Bill of
Rights is identified as an ordinary act of parliament which can be modified or repealed by
parliament. Murrell (2017) has noted that Australia is the only liberal democracy not to have
either a constitutionally entrenched Bill of Rights or national human rights act. The
Commonwealth (federal) government of Australia has introduced a National Human Rights
Consultation process in order to establish whether human rights in Australia are safeguarded
adequately and if not what type of measures must be taken in order to enhance human rights
protection. According to Chilton and Versteeg (2016), the Australian Constitution protects only a
few rights and constitutes mo inclusive Bill of Rights. The thesis statement of the essay is
“Australia does not need a Bill of Rights as they have been sufficiently protected.”
Discussion
Australia has never constituted a Bill of Rights in order to offer protection of human
rights in a single document. Victoria and the ACT are distinguished as the only jurisdictions
within Australia to have enacted human rights acts. The Australian Constitution does not
constitute a Bill of Rights, but it comprises certain limited rights protections. Reports of Murrell
(2017) have noted that the rights contained in the constitution are identified as the right to vote
known as Section 41, the right to trial by the jury (Scetion 80) in addition to freedom of religion

2INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
known as Section 116 and prohibition on discrimination on the basis of state of residency
(Section 117).
The debate in opposition to an Australian Bill of Rights has been clearly supported by
citizens who have ensured that their elected governments as well as policy-makers possess the
essential competence of efficiently safeguarding their freedom. Such a level of certainty do not
exhibit the importance of establishing constitutionally entrenched Bill of Rights as a vital part of
the Australian law as they have been sufficiently protected by existing liberal democracy.
Comprehensive studies of White et al. (2015) have argued regarding the need for Australia’s
liberal democracy to change or adopt any charter of rights in order to protect the current human
right acts and legislations. Furthermore, Williams and Reynolds (2015) have mentioned that
Australia has ratified majority of the fundamental human rights treaties applied by the United
Nations namely the ICCPR, the CAT, the CEDAW and the CROC under which it already posed
obligations to capably protect certain human rights. Drawing relevance to these evidences,
Murrell (2017) has shed light on Australia of not constituting an entrenched Bill of Rights. At
this point of discussion, West (2017) has cited an example of the case of Australia’s Minister for
Immigration and Ethnic affairs versus Teoh. According to White et al. (2015), the case of
Australia Minister for Immigration and ethnic affairs versus Teoh has revealed that High Court
accepted Australia’s obligations under the UN treaty of the child although the treaty has been
ratified but not yet been implemented. Such an approach has reinforced notion that a Bill of
Rights is highly unwarranted as human rights have already proficiently been offering utmost
security by the a range of human rights treaties which Australia has ratified.
Moreover, in the absence of extensive constitutional rights, State and Commonwealth
statutes have been directly provide certain human rights and determine procedures, progression