Horror stories unfairly bedevil charter of rights
Richard Ackland; 9/5/08
In recent weeks the charter of rights “debate” has been heading largely in one direction - against. The antagonists have had longer at the megaphone than usual and have cranked up the volume. Cardinal George Pell is out on the barricades, and unsurprisingly he thinks a charter of rights is a bad thing, along with stem-cell research, contraception and abortion. The NSW Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, and the former premier Bob Carr have lent their voices to the anti campaign. They think you would be crazy if you let anyone other than NSW politicians look after your freedoms. A handful of conservative provocateurs from the fourth estate keep banging away about how awful such legislation would be. These voices are relatively fresh from saying the invasion of Iraq was a good idea, which gets me thinking that surely they cannot be hugely wrong yet again.
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Christianity, Human Rights