Pinkwash

“National consistency” is just as much a euphemism for procrastination and mediocrity when it comes to a Charter of Rights. In the lead up to the federal election the then Opposition backed off its commitment to a national charter. Now that it is in government, at best it will set up a committee to conduct an inquiry, and return to the issue in its next term. When it does, you can be sure the ground-breaking Tasmanian proposals on enforceability and a wide range of rights will be submerged and lost.

The real dynamic for change is the same here as it is for relationship reform: a Charter found its way on to the Tasmanian political agenda because the ACT and Victoria bucked the national trend and led the way. Similarly, it will only make its way on to the agenda in other states and nationally, if Tasmania continues along the road to reform with its eyes set on the best Charter yet.

If, at this crucial stage in our local and national reform process, Tasmania ducks for cover behind “national consistency”, despite the high level of community support mentioned above, it will provide other states and the Commonwealth with the excuse they need to do little or nothing. It will also signal that an autumnal chill is bringing Tasmania’s summer of social reform to an end.
As you can see, I’m no fan of “national consistency”. Whether we’re talking about human rights guarantees, relationship law reform, surrogacy, fertility and parenting policy, school curricula, health-service delivery, workplace conditions, or any number of other areas of state policy-making, “national consistency” is a pernicious political doctrine designed not to elevate national public policy, but to reduce, blur and stymie progressive, local initiatives in the name of a national lowest common denominator.

“National consistency” is the mongrel child of Bob Hawke’s consensus politics and John Howard’s strident state-baiting nationalism. Like its forebears it allows Sydney-based socially-conservative elites to extend their influence across a continent whose political and cultural diversity and exuberance they despise, deny and want to destroy. For a self-described “socially progressive” small government like Tasmania’s to collude in this sham is nothing short of a betrayal.

Having stripped from the hands of The Mercury and the state government empty slogans like “drawing power from the people”, and “national consistency”, what we are left with is the perverse argument that Tasmania’s record of achieving social justice is an excuse for ignoring ways we might improve that record.

As I’ve argued, this is flawed because of a misunderstanding of Tasmania’s past achievements: some have been due to a Charter of Rights, none would have occurred if we had waited for others to match us.

But more importantly, it is flawed because it fails to consider how we should respond to the injustices of today and tomorrow.

There are still many legal and social injustices facing minorities. There are still many cracks in our democratic system through which powerless and vulnerable people can slip. There is still the potential for power to be exercised callously and without adequate restraint. Indeed, as our political, social and economic interactions grow more complex and globalised, so do the ways in which abuses can be perpetrated.

It is unethical to expect people disadvantaged by such abuses to rely on the machinery of Parliament, the good will of their fellow citizens, bureaucratic standardisation, or “vigorous public debate” to right the wrongs against them. They may be too powerless or the injustice against them too urgent or ubiquitous. If we truly value justice and want to see injustice addressed we must provide those who believe they are treated unfairly with another, more accessible and reliable way to make their claim.

The injustices we face today and will face tomorrow cannot be pinkwashed by a starry-eyed complacency over past injustices defeated. They demand ever more refined, improved and locally-relevant ways of creating a fair society.

They demand a Charter of Rights.