Death knell struck for human rights reforms under Rudd

In July 2009, Father Frank Brennan was completing his historic national human rights advisory mandate from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

The task was huge: to investigate whether Australia, the only advanced democracy without a bill of rights, needed one and how it might work.

Over the past six months, Fr Brennan has led roundtable discussions in every state and territory, cities, Aboriginal communities, the Torres Strait islands and even Christmas Island.

During this time, the Jesuit priest transformed from a self-proclaimed fence sitter to a supporter of reform. The final report advocated a human rights law.

However, while writing the group report in the winter of 2009 622-page report, He was asked to meet Mark Arbib, then a NSW senator and faction leader.

“I don’t know if this had been reported before but about halfway through the investigation I was called into Mark Arbib’s office,” Father Brennan told AAP.

“I knew I was walking into the den in NSW, to the right of the ALP. And he said to me: ‘So Dad, can you explain how a human rights bill would work?’

“I’ve been through this myself, and he said, ‘You mean if we set this up, there will be some things that parliament can’t do?’ and I said ‘yes, that’s true’.

“’Then we’d be crazy if we did that, right?’ he said.

“I walked out of that room knowing he was definitely dead in the water.”

This extensive consultation was Australia’s largest public inquiry and prompted 35,000 public submissions from both sides of the debate; of these, 28,000 were in favor of a human rights bill and 4,200 were against it.

The reform would codify all of these Australia’s obligations under international agreements – such as the convention against torture, the disability convention, the child rights convention – are collected in a single law.

But Mr. Arbib’s concerns were typical of others at the cabinet table and on the conservative side of politics; His view was that this could tie the hands of governments that wanted to pass certain laws.

The former senator told the AAP he would “not quarrel” with the memory of Fr Brennan, whom he called “a good and decent man”.

“It was part of the job to ask difficult questions about how a proposal would work in practice, and the balance between parliament and the courts was a central question in this debate,” he said.

The Labor government opted for watered-down reform rather than a human rights bill.

It has introduced compliance declarations stating whether laws comply with human rights obligations and a parliamentary committee to review laws from a human rights perspective.

Mr Arbib, who is now president of the Australian Olympic Committee and remains out of the discussion, said the call was made by the prime minister and attorney general.

Fr Brennan said he felt Attorney-General Robert McClelland wanted reform and Mr Rudd was also keen on the investigation early on before turning a cold shoulder.

The inquiry was reported in October 2009, as Mr Rudd was facing a party backlash that would eventually end his leadership.

“I think it was all very complicated and there was a lot of ball being played in Canberra at the time and it wasn’t a high priority,” Father Brennan said.

He interpreted the meeting with Mr. Arbib in July 2009 as the death knell of reform.

“I didn’t feel threatened. It was a very honest conversation. But I was demoralized, to put it that way,” he said.

From this point on, Father Brennan decided to write the report tactically, not pushing human rights legislation as Recommendation 1, but instead layering it as a step-by-step guide that might allow a future government to enact it.

“Ours was a set of recommendations that I deliberately called cascading recommendations,” he said.

“I knew there was no way we could get a human rights bill, but there was a way we could get something like a parliamentary joint committee.”

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