Would a Bill of Rights improve the quality of Australian journalism?

The first experiments, like that being considered in NSW, will need to be compromised in the areas of parliamentary supremacy and enforcement to simply gain a foothold on Australian soil but the long-term objective must be to give citizens enforceable and meaningful rights and immunities in exchange for the responsibilities of citizenship.

A Bill of Rights that sets out the right of freedom of speech does not simply grant an individual a right to speak freely but necessitates a fourth estate willing to embrace the responsibilities of a right to free speech.

The key question will be whether Australian journalists can go beyond the freedom to speak. To take on the burden to convey and protect the virtues and vulnerabilities of a nascent Australian liberal democracy. Bills of Rights are transformational documents that convert the occasional practice of free speech into a lexicon of necessity for journalists, lawyers, academics and citizens.

Much of the discussion about Bills of Rights and free speech concentrates on two topics: the desirability or dangers of lawmaking by judges and the chance for those rendered mute by defamation barriers, legislative constraints or other fears to speak out. A Bill of Rights transforms an often isolated, ad hoc and too-infrequent journalistic contribution to free speech into a minimal condition necessary for membership entry into the fourth estate.

Any Bill of Rights?

Yet the granting of such constitutional rights ought not give an unrestricted voice to those who pay lip service to the aspirational values of free speech but too willingly partake in slash-and-burn sensationalism.

A Bill of Rights that simply codifies a set of values adopted uncritically from overseas – whether the inspiration is the US, UN, UK or EC – risks diminishing values we should retain.

A Bill of Rights that is unenforceable and too dismissive of the citizen as proposed in the minimalist version being considered by the NSW parliamentary committee is too little, too late.

A Bill of Rights granted from above, that lacks enforcement and delivered to the media as a gift can only expect to end up as a piece of legislative junk.

We owe it to ourselves to fashion a Bill of Rights that recognises our own conception of an Australian free speech rather than transferring allegiance to an imported brand.

The thin thread of Australian liberty

Australia has relied on an interesting mixture of common law (heavily influenced by the sentiment of the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights 1689), executive restraint, a sense of "the fair go" and an acceptance that free speech is at the heart of our democracy.