The Transit Lounge

Alistair Macrae

Our Christmas stockings are sometimes filled with not particularly useful gifts. A foot spa anyone? Novelty tie for Dad? Electric snow cone maker for the kids?

This Christmas, I would like our elected representatives in Canberra to give all Australians a really useful gift; A Human Rights Act. This is legislation to protect the human rights of all people in our community, and most importantly to give dignity and respect to the most vulnerable and marginalised among us.

Australia is the last major democracy without comprehensive human rights protection. A Human Rights Act, debated and passed by our national Parliament, could provide protection for the rights and freedoms which Australia has already agreed to protect through United Nations human rights treaties and conventions.

Australia has a pretty good record on human rights compared with many other countries but too many people are still falling through the cracks. A Human Rights Act would provide a safety net for those who have fallen through the significant holes in our current array of laws and government practice. It will help us to uphold people’s dignity, a common value across all religions and inherent to the ideal of a “fair go”. It will also help to identify when public policy is dividing us, as it sometimes does, into those who are “worthy” and those who are less than worthy.

Alison Atkinson-Phillips

The inaccurately named Parliament of the World’s Religions held in Melbourne recently was not a parliament in the sense of a decision-making body, or even in terms of having actual representatives from all the world’s religions — although organisers claimed to have 220 religions and spiritual traditions represented.

In most sessions, there was a domination of local (Australian) and North American voices, perhaps reflecting the fact that the Parliament’s headquarters is in Chicago, where the first Parliament was held over 100 years ago, and the first modern Parliament held in 1984.