Rights bill may broaden scope

With public consultation on a proposed Human Rights Act for Western Australia in full swing, strong support is emerging for the protection of social, economic and cultural rights under the charter.

The government released a draft bill on human rights in early May with an agreed set of civil and political rights and freedoms which constitute the human rights of all Western Australians, and preserve the sovereignty of Parliament.

Some of the suggested rights for inclusion – the protection of personal property, income, shelter, the environment, children, and disadvantaged and marginalised groups – have raised questions about how these rights would be enforced and what impact they would have.

Human Rights Consultative Committee chair and former federal politician, Fred Chaney, said broader social and economic issues had been frequently raised throughout the public consultation period, but a more detailed examination was necessary to determine the practicalities of introducing such protections.

 “These other rights such as income and shelter are more difficult to achieve. It’s a long shot,” Mr Chaney told WA Business News.

“The right to a house would naturally attract attention in the current market but how would that work when you have strong immigration, a big demand on housing, shortages of land, tradesman, bricks and timber? It’s much more complex and would require massive government investment.”

The awareness of individual human rights is on the rise in Australia, with Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory already enacting human rights laws through their respective parliaments.

In WA, the government has charged Mr Chaney, along with the head of the Council of Social Service, Lisa Baker, retired Anglican archbishop of Perth Dr Peter Carnley and associate professor in child health research Colleen Hayward, with the responsibility of gathering and reviewing public feedback on its own draft bill and preparing a report by the end of the year.

Mr Chaney said most of the submissions collected to date were in favour of the act and had come from middle-class people who felt their rights were not being respected by governments and bureaucracies.

WA Property Rights Association secretary, Heather Dewar, said private property rights should be enshrined in law because they were increasingly being violated by overzealous environmental, zoning and heritage impositions of the government.

Mrs Dewar said it would be making a submission to the committee calling for no arbitrary interference on the right of property ownership without fair and just compensation.

“We believe property ownership is a basic human right, but if we lose that right in any way, we must be fairly and justly compensated. We are aware of cases where this is just not happening,” she said.

“Perhaps if this is enshrined in law, it may prompt the powers to think a bit more about what they’re doing in light of the cost of compensation.”

Mr Chaney explained that the issue of property rights had emerged in the formation of human rights laws in Victoria and the ACT, and was interpreted in the Just Terms Compensation provision under the resulting bills.

There was a similar provision under the Australian Constitution, he said.