The Centre for Independent Studies has a program of events includind presentations on research in progress.

The first event of the year was a report by Elise Parham on the proposed Bill of Rights. The report “Behind the Moral Curtain” is on line here and there is also an audio on the same page.

Of course everyone is in favour of rights but the question is whether rights can be engineered in a political process that has proved around the world to be a vehicle for special interests. The title of the report hints at the “trojan horse” nature of this kind of legislation that looks so good and turns out to be poisonous. Discussion on the night raised a number of horror stories of  rights gone mad.

The conclusion of the paper:

Charters of rights are another tool in the political game. A national charter of rights would represent  a variety of interests and ideologies, like any other law. It would inhibit the rights of some in favour of the rights of others, like any other law. The profoundly important difference to other laws is that a charter would be a legal trump so that its contents would be potent in effect.
The manipulability of a statutory charter makes it a dangerous political tool, particularly in the long run. There is already evidence that a range of interest groups, legal intellectuals, and others are attempting to have their interests and causes preserved by such a law. Once a charter becomes subject  to  that kind of manipulation,  it  allows  the  infuence of  those  few who get  their  rights suffcient protection to dominate the rights of everyone else.
Although a human rights charter has an  important and  luring moral undertone,  in practice it is not clear that a charter would preserve those moral imperatives as it continues to grow and change through the lobbying of various groups. In a foretelling of the potential for this change,   AHRC President Catherine Branson QC told a human rights gala dinner in July 2009:
“[W]e  should  remember  that  ensuring  the  best  protection  of  human  rights  is  an ongoing process …” Australia is at an interesting stage in what I believe is a journey towards better rights protection. Tonight there is much to celebrate, but we should also remember that we have a long way to travel yet.
When this journey gets under way, what onglomeration of interests will be dictating the way government, judges and eventually the Australian community will live?
We can only imagine.