Call to adopt the tyrannical and much-criticized Canadian approach to "discrimination"

The usual Leftist devotion to crushing individual liberties below. Hans Bader has emailed me the following comment on it: "The Australian Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tom Calma, has made the pernicious proposal to put the burden of proof on people accused of racism to prove themselves innocent, rather than the government having to prove them guilty. Worse, he claims that that is how it is done in America. That is a false claim, since under U.S. federal antidiscrimination law, it is the plaintiff and government -- not the defendant -- that has the burden of proof, according to the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks (1993) and Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine (1981)". I reproduce a comprehensive article by Bader immediately after the article below

A STUDY of racial discrimination laws in several Western countries has prompted a call for the Government to toughen Australia's 33-year-old laws. Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma wants the burden of proof in cases of racial discrimination to fall on the alleged offender, instead of the person making the complaint. Mr Calma said Australia's laws made it difficult to prove there had been discrimination.

A Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission analysis of other countries, including the US, Britain and Canada, shows that in those countries the onus of proof shifts to the person who has been accused of discrimination once the complainant has established an initial case. In Australia, the burden of proof rests on the person making the complaint.

Mr Calma will ask the Federal Government to review the Race Discrimination Act, which was established in 1975 and was the first human rights legislation introduced in Australia. The only amendments to the act were the introduction of racial hatred provisions in 1995. Mr Calma said some people who had been racially discriminated against did not lodge a complaint because they felt the process was too hard. "It is a difficult exercise to be able to get that evidence together and if the offending party doesn't want to co-operate then you can't progress it," he said. "We do get occasions where people don't want to co-operate, and then we're forced to terminate a case, and then the case might have to be taken forward to a court." The alleged offender can be summoned to court to defend themselves, but then it gets very expensive.

A spokesman for Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the Race Discrimination Act had been a "strong and effective protection against racism". He said the Government had committed to conducting a wide-ranging national consultation on how to best protect the rights and responsibilities of Australians. "The courts have not identified significant areas of deficiency or inconsistency in the operation and interpretation of the act, which could be resolved by amending the act," he said. The Age believes that consultation could start by the end of the year. The nation's attorneys-general have also agreed to examine options to make Commonwealth and state anti-discrimination laws more consistent.

Mr Calma said if people were forced to defend themselves, it might make them think twice before offending. These kinds of complaints were usually a last resort. "A lot of people will tolerate behaviour, consider it a joke, until it comes to crunch point," he said. "You don't get vexatious complaints for the sake of complaints."

Peter van Vliet, executive officer of the Ethnic Communities' Council of Victoria, said Australia's racial discrimination laws needed to be strengthened. "There is a serious power imbalance, particularly between larger organisations and individuals who are being discriminated against," he said. "We certainly have a large body of anecdotal evidence that systemic racial and religious discrimination, particularly with regards to employment, exists in Australia."

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Using International "Law" to Subvert Basic Legal Protections and Democracy

Article below by Hans Bader. Bader is legal counsel to the Competitive Enterprise Institute and has had experience in bringing and defending race discrimination claims in the U.S. courts. For a short time he also helped adjudicate discrimination claims at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The original of the article below has numerous links

International courts and "human rights" bodies issue rulings that purport to have the force of law. But much of their reasoning is based not on written laws found in any law book, or agreed to by any legislature or citizenry. Instead, it is based on vaguely-defined "customary international law," principles of so-called "natural law" derived from a supposedly "clear consensus" by enlightened people across the globe. But that "consensus" is often illusory, since it can easily be fabricated, manipulated, or distorted by international lawyers.

Lawyers are, on average, further to the left politically than the average citizen. And so-called international lawyers are even more so. (I used to practice international law at Skadden, Arps). Just as the grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence, lawyers often claim that the law is more liberal elsewhere in the world than in their own benighted country, and that such liberal norms - at odds with their own country's law - constitute customary international law. Thus, it is commonly argued that customary international law bans the death penalty for mass murderers, and requires countries to ban disfavored forms of speech (such as "hate speech," or criticism of any religion), although in reality, the strongest support for bans on such speech actually comes from undemocratic regimes like Cuba and China.

It is hard to fight these claims even when they are false, because ordinary people (and even most lawyers) don't know much about foreign law. The lawyers who fashion "customary international law" are thus largely unaccountable. Perhaps as a result, customary international law is generally of poorer quality than domestic law. Scholars have cited this fact in celebrating the Supreme Court's recent decision in Medellin v. Texas (2008), which refused to make Texas hear yet another challenge to a murderer's conviction (which had already twice been upheld by different court systems) when ordered to do so by the International Court of Justice (a ruling at odds with the fact that virtually all ICJ member countries permit only one appeal of a conviction, not successive appeals).

Misleading the public about foreign law is common among "human rights" officials. For example, an official in Australia's new Labour government claims that people accused of race discrimination should have to prove themselves innocent, rather than being proved guilty. To justify this outrage, he and Australia's "human rights" commission claim that is the practice in America, when in fact it is quite the contrary.

American law puts the burden of proof on the complainant and the government, not the alleged offender, in discrimination cases. The U.S. Supreme Court explicitly so ruled in Texas v. Burdine (1981) and St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks (1993). But Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tom Calma, and the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission falsely claim that under American law, "the onus of proof" is on "the person who has been accused of discrimination." (See "Call to Switch Onus on Racist Offenses," The Age, News, April 5, 2008).

Joseph H.H. Weiler, a law professor who co-drafted the European Parliament's Declaration of Human Rights and Freedoms, made American legal thinking seem more liberal than it is, by inviting to Europe to represent it two of America's most radical law professors: the University of Michigan's Catharine MacKinnon, who considers most heterosexual sex to be rape; and Harvard Law School's Duncan Kennedy, who advocated having law school professors periodically exchange their positions with college janitorial staff in order to promote diversity and social equality.

By contrast, when laws across the world are more conservative than a law professor's own, they are studiously ignored in formulating "human rights" law (like the world-wide aversion of most countries' legal systems toward civil punitive damages and late-term abortions, which U.S. law often permits).

The very international "human rights" lawyers who insist that "hate speech" should be curbed are often radicals who are blind to certain forms of prejudice. A classic example of this is the disturbing Richard Falk, recently appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate Israel. Falk, a liberal Princeton professor emeritus, has likened Israel to the Nazis, praised the Ayatollah Khomeini (the Iranian dictator whose regime ordered the killings and torture of many religious and ethnic minorities in Iran), and promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories that accuse the U.S. government of complicity in the 9/11 attacks. Falk's wackiness may offend the general public and Israel, which plans to bar him from coming to Israel, but it apparently does not offend lawyers and state judges very much: it did not stop the Washington State Supreme Court from citing his advocacy of affirmative action to uphold a discriminatory, gender-based affirmative-action set-aside in public contracting, in Southwest Wash. Chapter v. Pierce County, 667 P.2d 1092 (1983).

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Feds demand that banks cut fees - or else

I am in general suspicious of regulation but Australian banks are so appalling that they need something to shake them up. They are nearly as bad as Australia's phone companies -- and in both cases competition has done little to civilize them

AUSTRALIA'S profit-rich banks have been warned they face a new wave of regulation if they fail to cut fees and make it easier for customers to switch lenders. Laying down a big challenge to the finance sector, Treasurer Wayne Swan has called on the banks to review their existing fee structures. Mr Swan has promised fresh laws if they don't make it easy for customers to switch home loans and other accounts. In a bluntly worded letter to the CEOs of Westpac, Commonwealth, ANZ, NAB and St George, he said he would consider regulatory options.

The Government's tough attitude follows a review of bank fees, which found Australian customers were paying more for services than in Britain and the US. The Government is sensitive to claims it is not doing enough to protect consumers and is calling on the banks to review their fee structures.

"I would encourage lenders to review their existing fee structures, especially where exit fees are high relative to industry averages and might not reflect the underlying cost of terminating the loan," Mr Swan said, in his letter. He also called on the banks to look at ways to provide simpler fee wording to customers and improved fee disclosure. "I am committed to an industry-based solution to remove impediments to (bank) switching," Mr Swan said. "However, I am also prepared to consider the regulatory options that will be available to the Government following (the) decision the Commonwealth assume responsibility for the regulation mortgage credit and advice."

Last night the banking sector challenged the Treasurer over fees, claiming Australia was competitive. David Bell, chief executive of the Australian Bankers Association, said he did not want to comment on Mr Swan's motivation. But Mr Bell rejected suggestions the banks were price-gouging customers. "I don't believe the banks are charging excessive fees. It is not a simple matter to set up a home loan for someone," he said.

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Toyota to be subsidized by the Australian taxpayer (!)

More Green/Left nonsense that will achieve nothing -- at great expense

CAR giant Toyota is poised to manufacture its hybrid Camry in Melbourne with a deal set to be clinched by mid-year. Talks are still underway but senior Toyota executives in Tokyo are strongly backing plans to make the company's Altona plant the regional production base for the green Camry, Fairfax newspapers report today. The deal will go ahead providing the right government incentives are secured, and the federal government is aiming for an announcement by the end of July.

Victorian Premier John Brumby has been in discussions with Tokuichi Uranishi, executive vice-president of Toyota in Japan. And senior Victorian cabinet ministers, armed with the government's $500-million green car fund, have met Japanese diplomatic officials and Toyota executives in an effort to secure the vehicle for Altona.

Federal Innovation Minister Kim Carr said negotiations with Toyota were continuing "fruitfully". The green Camry is currently in production in Japan and the US.

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Independent Schools' call to deregulate education system

There's little chance of any of this happening but it's encouraging to see such thinking getting an airing

THE State Government should put the building and running of new schools out to open tender and release all details of individual funding, a new report on Queensland's education system urges. The report, commissioned by the Independent Schools Queensland lobby, lashes the present system, which it says ensures the Government has a conflict of interest because it delivers and regulates education services. It accuses the Government of using its regulatory and financial powers to restrict the supply and funding of private schooling at a time of severe pressure on the system, caused by population growth and the ageing of the teacher workforce.

Written by policy analyst Dr Scott Prasser, the report warns that, as with water supply, health and infrastructure, school education may be the next crisis the Government will have to tackle unless it changes the system. Calling for a more deregulated model of school education, it says that one in three of all Queensland school students attend non-government schools, but the sector is still treated as an "appendage" to the system. "There is a clear but largely unacknowledged conflict of interest between the State Government as a supplier of education services and a regulator of the public and non-government school sectors," the report says.

Dr Prasser, from the University of the Sunshine Coast, said the Government also should encourage more community involvement in the running of schools and the development of schools policy. Independent Schools Queensland executive director John Roulston said the group has commissioned the report to "promote informed debate" on school education policy issues.

Premier Anna Bligh said she would examine the report. Education Minister Rod Welford also received a copy of the report yesterday but had not read it. The report does not avoid criticising the private school system, saying all school sectors had resisted any moves to release more comprehensive school performance data to the public. "The public release of school performance data is one of the first steps needed to obtain a better appreciation of what is working in education," the report said.

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