The performance of Australian legislatures in protecting rights
Abstract
This chapter focuses on reframe the discussion of the role of Australian parliaments as rights protectors, in part by reframing the influential concept of 'dialogue’ now so prominent in the literature on relationships between parliaments and courts. It discusses that parliaments are 'writing rights’ on a regular basis when passing legislation and that much of this routine but quite fundamental rights-protection passes without note in much of the international rights-protection literature. The chapter suggests that the general properties of the Australian constitutional order are best illustrated through the instance of the federal Constitution of 1901. It also discusses that Australian constitutional order itself reflects a larger constitutional commitment to a neglected model of rights-protection. The chapter argues that at the national level where rights-protection by parliaments has probably been at its strongest, the Commonwealth Parliament’s constitutional role in rights-protection has been overshadowed by the scholarly prominence given to the High Court.