July 07, 2007
One of session at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas that I attended on Saturday was the Roma Mitchell Oration hosted by the Equal Opportunity Commission and the Festival. It was delivered by Hilary Charlesworth and explored the past and future of human rights in an Australia governed by utilitarianism.
Charlesworth argued that the history of human rights discourse has been one of deep resistance from the 1890s when Andrew Inglis Clarke, Tasmanian Attorney-General, suggested entrenching some basic rights in the Constitution. Despite various attempts tried to introduce a Bill of Rights human rights has had a minimal presence in the 20th century that was dominated by states rights. But human rights has a future as a Bill of Rights has been introduced into the ACT and been promised in Victoria. South Australia continues to resist.
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