5 - Implementing Rights

Summary

This chapter critically understands the seemingly spontaneous emergence of rights consciousness in the 1980s, exploring first the politics of the so-called “human rights explosion”, focusing on government and activist responses to 1978’s 30th anniversary of the passage of the UDHR. Stalled bids for an Australian Bill of Rights under the Hawke government and the creation of a national Human Rights Commission (1981–6) occupy the remainder of this chapter. These developments are explored alongside synchronous campaigns for a treaty or Makarrata with Aboriginal Australians and recognition of Gay and Lesbian rights, as well as the continued intransigence of conservatives – in particular Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen and the decade’s “New Right”. Invented in the 1940s, ignored, experimented with or contested in later decades, superficially at last the 1980s saw government, the legal system and many social movements adopt human rights’ precepts at a startling pace. An explosion, even a revolution, was clearly underway: but there was seemingly as little clarity as ever on what human rights actually meant. Was this, in the end, a popular groundswell or a revolution from above?