Australia’s charter of rights is dead on arrival. Good riddance, a human rights academic has told Crikey, but others like Julian Burnside lament the lost opportunity to recognise those on the margins of society.

A national charter of rights was the key recommendation of a report from the national human-rights consultation committee chaired by Jesuit lawyer Frank Brennan. But Labor MPs have rejected a plan that would have handed new powers to the judiciary, according to a report today, with Attorney-General Robert McClelland to announce a new scheme to protect individual rights without changing the balance of power between parliament and the judiciary.

Crikey went to the experts on both sides of the debate for a reaction.

Human rights lawyer Julian Burnside:

It’s deeply disappointing to see the Government has rejected the committee’s suggestions; this was a very carefully conducted commission that has received more submissions than any other, a detailed inquiry and it was overwhelmingly in favor of a legislative change.

The Bill would not have had a dramatic impact on most Australians but it would have had an impact on those groups at margins of society that continue to have a limited ability to find a remedy to obvious wrongs. Groups that are typically ignored are the indigenous, asylum seekers, homeless and those with mental disability. They are denied basic human rights protection and now the Government has once and for all foreclosed any possibility.

It’s incredible that in 2010 Australia is the only Western democracy that doesn’t have human rights protection.

It is tempting to say that this rejection comes partly because the Government would then be unable to treat Tamil and Afghani the way it does, it wouldn’t be able to re-open Curtain detention centre. It would be awkward to act the way they are now and then promote a human rights charter.

At first the Rudd Government was considering the possibility of changing its approach with the establishment of the Brennan Committee but it now has made a u-turn that has left everyone extremely disappointed. The same two-step procedure can be seen in the way asylum seekers have been treated.

Queensland University Professor of Law James Allan:

It’s a great day for Australia. If a referendum would have been put in place the pro-bill of rights side would have been slaughtered. The Committee headed by Brennan was incredibly bogus with no opponent or skeptic within it. I already knew what it would have said, I could have written it myself and saved the Government lots of money.

A Bill of Rights in the UK has seen an increased power handed to the judiciary but no advance in terms of rights for people. If you look at the hard facts Australia does have laws that protect free speech, hate laws, defamation laws and they are extremely effective.

Why are judges given the power to decide the concrete limits of our rights and the same power isn’t given to teachers, journalists or others?

In the case of the asylum seeker issue, why would Australians want the United Nations to make decisions for them rather than their elected Government? You have to be able to accept that some decisions are made with which you might not agree, minorities always exist

It is not true that conservatives blocked the Bill of Rights, in fact it was mostly Labor people that lobbied against it like Bob Carr.

What it comes down to is that with the Bill of Rights you’re not buying absolute free speech, you still have to wait for the judges to tell us what the rules are, they make them more concrete. It’s completely illegitimate to let this decision making power to be transferred to the judiciary.

Crikey contributor and barrister Greg Barns:

It’s extremely disappointing to hear about its rejection. It means that human rights in Australia are less well protected of those of just about every other democratic country and it’s a pity that the Rudd Government has succumbed to a scare campaign conducted by Australian right wings commentators and church leaders.

I consider anything less than a full Bill of Human Rights is a toothless tiger and an empty gesture. We’ll see a trend over the coming years of state governments introducing their own Bill.

Yet again politics has been put in front of human rights, in much the same way the Government has done with the asylum seekers issue. The Government is scared that people have human rights and campaigners have lied consistently to Australians on the issue of human rights.