Human Rights and Water Canons

eCouncillor is a well known supporter of a Human Rights Bill for Australia. (Read post on launch of campaign at Town Hall http://ecouncillor.blogspot.com/2005/10/launch-of-campaign-for-human-rights.html )

A charter of rights for NSW seems (reported in today's SMH and below) a step in the right direction balanced with the news on the same day that the government is to purchase water canons for Police to manage football riots. Using water canons seems like resignation to managing the issues giving rise to football riots and other riots like Cronulla, Redfern and Macquarie Fields. As the anger rises and riot violence escalates will the politicians be forced to escalate the responses with tear gas and South African apartheid era armoured troop carries? The government needs to invest real resources in identifying the underlying causes for social unrest and get in there to address them before explosive riots. We certainly do not want to be confronted with violent civil unrest as bedevils France.

Charter of rights plan to be put to cabinet
By Jonathan PearlmanMarch 20, 2006
THE NSW Attorney-General, Bob Debus, has declared his support for a charter of rights for the state that would allow courts to consider whether laws infringed basic human freedoms.
Mr Debus told the Herald he would take a proposal to cabinet to invite public consultation on the values and rights Parliament should protect.
It could guarantee freedoms such as the vote, a fair trial, freedom of assembly, property rights and freedom from torture and racial discrimination.
The charter - similar to those in Victoria, the ACT, Britain and New Zealand - could also bind government agencies, including the police service, over their treatment of employees and the public.
Mr Debus said a charter would not go as far as constitutional bills of rights, such as those in the US and Canada, allow courts to declare laws invalid.
Instead, Parliament would be required to ensure laws complied with the charter and provide human rights impact statements. If the courts believed basic freedoms were infringed, they could declare laws were incompatible with the charter and send them back for review. This would not bind Parliament when reconsidering any legislation.
Mr Debus said the terrorist threat had forced the Government to pass "extraordinary laws", and this prompted the need to declare the values and rights that Parliament should protect.
The charter would enshrine fundamental freedoms and ensure the Government protected human rights, while responding to terrorist threats, he said.
"The times we live in are causing us to pass some laws that intrude on traditional freedoms in ways that we have not experienced in recent times.
"I support our laws on terrorism as they have been drafted - and the community does too - but they potentially restrict freedoms. This is a process by which the whole community discusses what it thinks are our basic values and tells the Parliament that it wants them protected."
Mr Debus said a charter could promote tolerance in the wake of the Cronulla riots. "A charter would hopefully help to remind the community that all people in a society have equal rights," he said.
Australia is the only common law country without a bill to protect human rights, prompting the ACT and Victoria to develop their own bills.
The federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, has criticised Victoria's plan to introduce a charter, saying it would create a "lawyers' feast" and transfer power to unelected judges.
But a constitutional expert, Professor George Williams, who helped draft Victoria's charter, said a similar bill introduced in Britain in 1998 had resulted in almost no increases in litigation.
"It is about improving government and preventing human rights problems," he said. "When you look at recent events in Sydney, there is obviously a strong need for education about our democracy and the values we need to adhere to."
The former premier Bob Carr strongly opposed a bill of rights, saying it transferred too much power to the courts and would lead to litigation concerning "naked strollers" and "vegetarian menus".
However, Mr Debus said the process would "not merely be the property of civil liberty activists".
A similar consultation process in Victoria under a committee chaired by Professor Williams attracted more than 2500 public submissions.