Rights charter runs into religious opposition

SYDNEY - Australia's religious leaders have come together in a rare show of unity to oppose plans for a national charter of human rights, which they claim would erode religious freedoms.

Australia is the only liberal democracy without a human rights statute, and Kevin Rudd's Labor Party pledged to set up a national consultation process when it was elected in 2007.

A Government-appointed committeee toured the country, evaluating community attitudes, and found strong support for human rights being enshrined in legislation.

The Government has yet to respond formally to the committee's report, released this month. But religious leaders are marshalling opposition to its central recommendation of a human rights bill, with Cardinal George Pell, head of the Catholic Church, leading a 20-strong delegation to Canberra this week.

Pell's lobby group, which represents the Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist and Pentecostal Churches and Islam and Judaism, fears a bill of rights would threaten religious freedoms.

Pell wrote in the Australian newspaper yesterday it would be used to attack religious schools, hospitals and charities that elected to employ people of a particular faith.

He and other leaders, who met the federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, say judges would be given the final say on fraught issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

They are also concerned about the introduction of religious vilification laws, which they say would undermine the right to freedom of expression.

The consultation committee, which was chaired by a Jesuit priest and law professor, Father Frank Brennan, travelled to 52 places around the country and received 35,000 submissions, the majority of which backed a rights bill. Supporters say it would lead to better protection of the rights of minorities, such as indigenous people, refugees and the homeless.

Critics - who include most opposition politicians and some judges and senior Labor figures - say it would transfer decision-making from elected parliamentarians to the judiciary. The committee recommends High Court judges be given the power to declare a law "incompatible" with human rights and refer it back to Parliament.

Bob Carr, the former Premier of New South Wales, has warned that judges would be able to "effectively strike down ... legislation".

He said: "Australia's one of the freest countries in the world. We've got the common law, we've got robust freedom of expression, we've got a rigorous parliamentary system."

Others predict the courts would become clogged with human rights cases, since anyone whose rights were breached by a government department or official body would be eligible for compensation.

Michael Kirby, a former High Court judge, says that concern has proved groundless in Britain, which has had such an act since 2000.

Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory have charters of rights. Critics of a national charter - which Brennan's report says would improve the "patchwork quilt of protection for human rights" - say one should not be introduced without a referendum. The Government is not obliged to do so.