A Bill of Rights for Australia

Kevin Rudd has been much criticised by left and right for ‘me too-ism’ on the economy, the NT intervention and The Haneef Affair, and the government is making much of this, while simultaneously objecting to Labour’s differences on such issues as IR, Iraq and Climate Change. It’s time this debate grew up.

The fact is that Australia, like most developed democracies, is moving towards a centrist, consensus style of government, and Rudd is that kind of politician. We most resemble countries like Canada, Switzerland, Sweden and the UK, both in terms of our political culture and our egalitarian values. The vast majority of Australians agree on the kind of society we want to live in, and what kinds of services governments should be providing.

For example: affordable universal health care; good public education; sustainable environmental management; an independent judiciary; respect for human rights; justice for Indigenous Australians; a fair go in the workplace balanced with a dynamic economy; efficient transport and infrastructure; effective defence forces; multilateral-based foreign policy; good-neighbourliness… and so on. One could haggle about the emphasis, but these are surely the common political values that have sustained Australia’s social contract since Federation, and allowed Australians to travel the world with pride in their country’s reputation.

Because these values are not enshrined in a bill of rights, we rely on a continuation of the tradition of political consensus. The problem arises when a Government, whether of the left or the right, uses its mandate to impose a narrow political ideology on the people, even in the face of widespread opposition, for example the invasion of Iraq, climate change scepticism, and arguably recent workplace laws. There are no doubt examples on the left, but our (self-avowed) most conservative leader since Menzies has imposed his personal ideology on Australian society to an unprecedented degree. He has seen his constituency as essentially business, both large and small, and his style of government has been largely inspired by the wedge-and-divide strategies of the Republican-governed USA. George Bush once smugly described his political base as “The Haves… and the Have-Mores”, and he wasn’t kidding. The world’s richest nation fails to deliver affordable health-care to a quarter of its citizens, has some of the worst education outcomes in the developed world, and its foreign policy continues to guarantee the recruitment of a new generation of jihadists.

Mr Howard fails similarly to govern for all the people. He’s way out of kilter with the underlying centrist trend in politics, and it’s time for him to go gracefully. The next decades will be defined by consensus-builders like Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull. Australians don’t need or want leaders to define our values, or to impose their personal morals on us. We need good technocrats – an executive that will effectively implement our commonly-agreed values, do it cost-effectively, govern for all of us, and be chucked out pronto if they don’t. Which is why a Bill of Rights should be incorporated into the constitution.