The future is what we make it - so let’s make it fair
Together we have some very big decisions to make – and they go to the core of who we are as a community and the kind of world we want to live in.
Thanks to good public health advice – and the governments and citizens that listened to it and acted quickly – it seems Australia has dodged the cataclysmic COVID bullet for the time being.
Although we’d all love nothing more than to just take a deep breath and pause for a moment, we know that the policy debates that come next will have huge ramifications for millions of Australians and will set the political tone for years to come.
In other words, we have work to do.
The usual suspects of vested interests and lobby groups are circling our political leaders and ramping up the hard-sell on their ‘dog eat dog’ economic agendas. We mustn’t let them dominate the political debate and the legal reforms that will follow.
It’s time to unite the community behind a bold and positive vision of a fairer Australia and outline a roadmap for getting there.
We need to reignite the long-overdue discussion about how best to create an Australian Charter of Human Rights & Freedoms.
A Charter is about ensuring that the values we all share – like fairness, respect, dignity and compassion – are always at the heart of all government decisions, laws and policies.
It’s about clearly listing and articulating all of our human rights and freedoms so that everyone from school kids to new Australians can know their rights and understand what we value and prioritise as a community.
Importantly a Charter also provides a powerful tool to challenge injustice and means if someone has their rights violated they can take action and seek justice.
As the COVID health crisis has highlighted, there are significant structural inequalities in our society that mean vulnerable communities and people in precarious positions are always hit hardest. This isn’t fair and it just isn’t good enough.
But the crisis has also reminded us that we’re at our best when we treat each other with respect and compassion. When we recognise that we’re in it together.
Creating an Australian Charter of Human Rights & Freedoms is a chance to hard-wire ‘the fair go’ into our democracy, so that all governments – regardless of their political stripes – know they have to prioritise our human rights – things like health care, education, equality, housing and so on.
All of us should be able to see a doctor regardless of our bank balance and every kid should get a quality education regardless of their postcode. This is part of what make Australia a great place to live for most people, most of the time, so we shouldn’t keep taking these rights for granted and just hoping that politicians will always do the right thing by us.
The task at hand is put this conversation on the national agenda. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It’s strongest when all of us are informed, engaged and active.
By and large, our political leaders have done well to guide us through the COVID crises, but rather than just ‘snapping back’ to business as usual, now is the time reflect on what we value the most as a society and how we could do things better – in good times and bad.
Tom Clarke is the Director of Campaigns at the Human Rights Law Centre.
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an Australian Charter of Human Rights