The group was unanimous in its view that the rights presented in Discussion Starter 2 - rights of association, assembly, shelter, free and compulsory education, fair trial, fair wage, health care, to withhold labour, privacy and access to information and communications, had all suffered diminishment in Australia.

Other rights that the group added to the list include:

• The right to live in a sustainable environment
• The right to life, and the exclusion of capital or cruel punishment from the country's penal system
• The right to work
• The right to own property, including land, subject to proper government legislation
• The right to shelter
• The right to social security and welfare assistance
• The right to universal public health care
• The right to universal public education, publicly funded
• The right to live in an essentially secular state that acknowledges freedom of thought, conscience an dreligion, and within which such freedoms and their manifestations are not allowed to interfere with the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship
• The sovereign right of every citizen, and every business and corporation operating in the state for profit, to pay required taxes within the fairest, across-the-board system. This system should be based entirely upon actual levels of earning, without the benefit of tax loopholes provided through trusts and tax havens, for example.
• The right to enfranchisement and a secure voting system for all.

Q2: As a group, if you were developing an Australian Bill of Rights, what would be important to you?

Having examined the notes (in discussion starter 2) on the Bill of Rights of Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, the following observations were considered important and highly relevant:

1. The New Zealand Bill of Rights - Act of 1990 - as presented was regarded as remarkable for its conclusiveness, its clarity of expression and the simplicity of its language, but its totality was criticised for the Act's inability to accept all of New Zealand's peoples as equal citizens, preferring to maintain the separation of Maoris and Pakeha.
2. If one existing Bill of Rights had to be chosen to act as an ideal model for an Australian Bill of Rights, it would be that contained in the French Constitution, because of its comprehensiveness and of the absolute centrality of the rights of citizen as its guiding principle.
3. In essence, the group considered that, provided an Australian Bill of Rights gave similar priority to the centrality of the citizens' rights, all the rghts lised in the gropu's response to Q1 should be regarded as the main themes that it would wish to include. However, it was very much the wish of the group that exhaustive care should be taken by nay group given the responsibility of framing a viable nad proper format for such a Bill, to word every section in such a way that it would be difficult to misinterpret or misrepresent its essence. It should be presented in the direct style of the New Zealand Bill of Rights.

OTHER POINTS THAT SHOULD BE FED INTO THE WIDER DISCUSSION:

1. The group felt very strongly, that an Australian Bill of Rights should contain a form of acceptance that, in return for the Rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, for every citizen, an implied responsibility for being involved in, and concerned with, the life and times of the local and national community in some practical manner.
2. Another concern was that responsibilities entered into by Government through international treaties, should be binding unless cancelled or varied by mutual agreement.
3. It was recognised that the demand for the fairest and most equitable system of national taxation (that denied the use of 'lurks and perks' to facilitate avoidance) would be feasible only through a universal international system - for example, the United Nations - a major human achievement that would be one of incalculable value in correcting the present obscene imbalance between the 'haves and the have nots'.

A copy of the relevant sections of the Constitution of Ireland is attached, because of its role in relation to the national attitude to international law and international justice.

Amendment I
Congress shall ake no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievences.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have previously been ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him or her; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his or her favour, and to have the assistence of counsel for his or her defense.

Irish Consitution

Article 1

The Irish nation hereby affirms its inalienable, and sovereign right to choose its own form of Government, to determine its relations with other nations, and to develop its life, political,economic and cultural, in accordance with its own genius and traditions.

Article 3

1. It is the firm will of the Irish nation, in harmony and friendship, to unite all the people who share territory of the island of Ireland, in all the diversity of their identities and traditions, recognising that a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of the majority of people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island.

Article 29

1. Ireland affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality.
2. Ireland affirms its adherence to the principle of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration or judicial determination.
3. Ireland accepts the generally recognised principles of international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other States.