Australia is now the only major Anglophone country that has not adopted a Bill of Rights. Since 1982 Canada, New Zealand and the UK have all adopted either constitutional or statutory bills of rights. Australia, however, continues to rely on common law, statutes dealing with specific issues such as racial and sexual discrimination, a generally tolerant society and a vibrant democracy. This book focuses on the protection of human rights in Australia and includes international perspectives for the purpose of comparison and it provides an examination of how well Australian institutions, governments, legislatures, courts and tribunals have performed in protecting human rights in the absence of a Bill of Rights.

"The Australian Constitution contains no guarantee of freedom of religion or freedom of conscience. Indeed, it contains very few provisions dealing with rights — in essence, it is a Constitution that confines itself mainly to prescribing a framework for federal government, setting out the various powers of government and limiting them as between federal and state governments and the three branches of government without attempting to define the rights of citizens except in minor respects. […] Whether Australia should have a national bill of rights has been a controversial issue for quite some time. This is despite the fact that Australia has acceded to the ICCPR, as well as the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, thereby accepting an international obligation to bring Australian law into line with the ICCPR, an obligation that Australia has not discharged. Australia is the only country in the Western world without a national bill of rights.4 The chapters that follow in this book debate the situation in Australia and in various other Western jurisdictions.' From Foreword by The Hon Sir Anthony Mason AC KBE: Human Rights and Courts

"Australia is often cited as the only Western nation without a bill of rights. While this remains true at a national level, the states and territories have recently taken the running on developing local bills of rights. The ACT adopted a Human Rights Act in July 2004 and in 2006. Victoria enacted a Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities in January 2007. Tasmania has now moved formally to consider similar legislation. And Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales also seem likely to take this course. This book examines the significance and ramifications of these radical developments. It is the first to offer a comprehensive examination of this new form of legislation in Australia"--Provided by publisher.

The first comprehensive account of Australian human rights from a political science perspective, it addresses the key debates in Australian political debates about human rights.

The bills of rights adopted in the Commonwealth countries of Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and, at the subnational level, Australia in recent decades, have prompted scholars and institutional actors involved in the process of constitutional design and reform to rethink how to evaluate and compare the different approaches to human rights protection. They have challenged a number of assumptions in the field, for example, that courts must have the power to invalidate laws that are found to violate rights (ie courts can now be given non-binding powers), that courts must have the 'final word' on rights issues (ie legislatures can now be given the power to override judicial decisions) and that bills of rights are enforced exclusively by courts (ie legislators can now be given new responsibilities to ensure that the laws they enact are compatible with rights).This book addresses three questions arising from these developments. How do these new bills of rights differ from the traditional approaches to rights protection? Why, if at all, should we consider the Commonwealth's approach over the traditional approaches? What compromises must be struck in the course of adopting a bill of rights of this variety? In answering these questions, the book sets out a new framework for comparison that focuses on the types of inter-institutional disagreement facilitated by and found in the different approaches to rights protection. It also identifies a previously unrecognised element of the Commonwealth's approach - the normative trade-offs with other constitutional principles and values - that is pivotal to understanding its operation. Finally, it seeks to contribute to future debates about rights reform in Australia and elsewhere by setting out a number of lessons that emerge from the answers to these three questions.**Dr Scott Stephenson, From Dialogue to Disagreement in Comparative Rights Constitutionalism, was joint winner of the inaugural Holt Prize 2015.

The New Zealand Bill of Rights is a comprehensive account of over a decade of jurisprudence under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The Book provides an indepth examination of the Act, covering such topics as the benefits and burdens of rights; principles of interpretation; impact on legislation and the legislative process; judical review; civil and political rights; the rights of persons subjected to criminal investigation and prosecution; trial procedures; powers of law enforcement; and remedies for breach. Combining descriptive, analytical and prognostic scholarship, the extensive detail of the New Zealand Bill of Rights marks it as a standard reference text for this important body of the New Zealand law.

Using overseas examples, and taking account of Australia's international treaty obligations, George Williams sets out a novel plan for extending the legal protection for human rights in Australia.

“Narrative, celebratory history at its purest” (Publishers Weekly)—the real story of how the Bill of Rights came to be: a vivid account of political strategy, big egos, and the partisan interests that set the terms of the ongoing contest between the federal government and the states. Those who argue that the Bill of Rights reflects the founding fathers’ “original intent” are wrong. The Bill of Rights was actually a brilliant political act executed by James Madison to preserve the Constitution, the federal government, and the latter’s authority over the states. In the skilled hands of award-winning historian Carol Berkin, the story of the founders’ fight over the Bill of Rights comes alive in a drama full of partisanship, clashing egos, and cunning manipulation. In 1789, the nation faced a great divide around a question still unanswered today: should broad power and authority reside in the federal government or should it reside in state governments? The Bill of Rights, from protecting religious freedom to the people’s right to bear arms, was a political ploy first and a matter of principle second. The truth of how and why Madison came to devise this plan, the debates it caused in the Congress, and its ultimate success is more engrossing than any of the myths that shroud our national beginnings. The debate over the Bill of Rights still continues through many Supreme Court decisions. By pulling back the curtain on the short-sighted and self-interested intentions of the founding fathers, Berkin reveals the anxiety many felt that the new federal government might not survive—and shows that the true “original intent” of the Bill of Rights was simply to oppose the Antifederalists who hoped to diminish the government’s powers. This book is “a highly readable American history lesson that provides a deeper understanding of the Bill of Rights, the fears that generated it, and the miracle of the amendments” (Kirkus Reviews).

Hate speech laws have existed in various forms in Australia for well over a decade. Unlike other countries, such as the United States and Canada, they have not faced constitutional hurdles to their existence. The general acceptance of hate speech laws in Australia opens intellectual space for the exploration of a range of interesting questions regarding the laws' operation, the underlying values they pursue and the context within which hate speech is occurring. How should the regulation of hate speech be balanced against Australia's political and cultural commitment to freedom of speech? Who are the hate speakers and how does their speech manifest? What types of hate speech are targeted by existing laws? How are these laws enforced? How can the laws be changed to improve governments' response to hate speech? How does the emergence of bills of rights affect the regulation of hate speech? Drawing on a broad range of academic and practical experts, this book addresses these questions. The essays in first part of this book outline the landscape within which hate speech regulation occurs. They include consideration of the legal, policy and historical context for vilification, the ways in which the language of hatred is changing, and a new look at the longstanding debate about the tension between freedom of speech and hate speech as a conflict between liberty and equality. In part two, the book considers the practice of hate speech regulation in a variety of Australian institutions and includes practical perspectives from the legal profession. In the final part the essays consider hate speech regulation within a broader human rights framework, taking into account the emergence of bills of rights in Australian states.