Posted on Nov 26, 2014

HRC Tim Wilson on Rights and Responsibilities in Oz.

Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner was in Hobart this week, as part of his nationwide tour aimed at gauging an understanding of our citizens’ concerns about fundamental human rights.

It would have been wonderful to see our prominent church leaders there to voice concern about the right to life of Australia’s aborted babies.

It would have been great to see doctors and nurses there to raise the issue of their complicity in referring for and assisting in abortion procedures.

No-one was there to question the state’s abortion on demand through all 9 months of pregnancy.

No pro life representatives were in attendance.

Instead, the LGBI community was well-represented, as were asylum seekers, moslems and some government agencies who were eager to express their rights to more funding, more subsidies, and less accountability for their expenditure.

This was not surprising, I suppose.

Commissioner Tim Wilson believes that the most fundamental human right is the right to own one’s own body, but no mention was made of this right of ownership for the children created in laboratories specifically for adoption by same-sex couples. Nor of the thousands of human embryos frozen or awaiting experimentation and then death.

There was a mention of the financial impact of discrimination against heterosexuals who hold a conscientious objection to providing services for same-sex weddings. Mr. Wilson seemed to be of the opinion that somehow, eventually, everyone would get along, and the instances of gross victimisation that we have seen thus far will become a thing of the past.

He proposed that a distinction be made by marriage celebrants at the time of their registration, as to whether they would perform heterosexual or homosexual weddings, or both. While this idea may have some merit, it was immediately shouted down by an SSM supporter in the audience who claimed that such a system was itself discriminatory.

You can probably guess which human rights violation I was there to address.

I decided not to tackle the issue of abortion itself, but to concentrate instead on the buffer-zone law and its harsh penalties.

The Commissioner expressed his concern for a growing trend among the state governments to penalise protest groups by criminalising their behaviour. We greed that special laws aren’t necessary, since abusive or disruptive behaviour is covered by existing laws. He stated that the penalties for breaking the exclusion zone were excessive, and that the size of the zone itself was also excessive. These are points that any logical civil rights activist should acknowledge, and I wasn’t surprised at his stance.

What did surprise me was the reaction of some women in the room to my speech. One of them had been involved in the consultation process for drafting the Tasmanian Reproductive Health bill. She suggested that the penalties were not harsh and that they would be applied only after previous, smaller penalties had failed to deter protesters. She mentioned that a move-along order would first be given, and if violated would lead to a charge before the zone-laws kicked in. There is no mention of this in the Act; it fits with our treatment by the police though and makes me wonder exactly how much extra-parliamentary discussion has been taking place between abortion advocates and the police hierarchy over the implementation of this unconstitutional law.

A second woman’s remarks were more surprising. When I stated that people should have the right to pray quietly outside the abortion centres without intimidating clients, and without obstructing the clinic entrance, she stated that Graham Preston had stood directly outside the abortion centre door while holding his sign.

This was simply not true; I was there on several occasions with Graham, and he at no time obstructed the clinic door and had no wish to do so. His aim has always been to alert passersby that abortion centres legally violate the right to life of children.

The third woman’s claims were astonishing: she called out that Graham had played a tape-recording of a baby crying, while outside the abortion centre. I told her that this was not true. I wondered where such a story originated - was it purposely being circulated as a lie? Or had someone misunderstood the protest, misinterpreted another person’s experience, and elaborated on the original story?

My turn passed, and other issues were raised: property rights for Aboriginals (native title isn’t regarded as equity to secure a housing loan); the marginalisation of intravenous drug users and their insistence upon having medication subsidised, better access to employment, more security against being charged for their offence (I’m not joking!); indignation at the federal government’s right to dictate how its funding is to be spent (apparently government agencies are not keen to see their funds being used in campaigns which criticise them); and perhaps my least appreciated human rights ‘violation’ - brought up by a Catholic Church employee - violations of the right of specific religions to build their houses of worship. No mention was made of the tenets of such religions: of the practices of female genital mutilation, honour killings, child marriage, and cries of victimisation by its members who engage in terrorist training overseas.

I left feeling drowned in victimhood, overwhelmed by the lies that people tell and that others believe. I left a microcosm of our nation’s discontent, and understood how western society has managed to fall so far: it is because the Left is vocal and consistent in its outrageous grievances while the silent majority is …. well, silent.

Our Human Rights Commissioner, Tim Wilson, is a man who is trying to be fair to every party.

He acknowledges that one person’s rights only extend until another party’s rights are infringed upon.

But without a moral compass, there is no way he will make everyone happy. It’s likely that in the end, it will be the rights of conservative, pro-life Christians that will be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness as the immoral frenzy of Leftist paganism continues.