Queensland – Beware of ‘Human Rights’ Commissioners Bearing Gifts ….!
By
Queensland’s Human Rights Commissioner made an excellent start in his Submission on the Government’s new Public Health and Other Legislation (Extension of Expiring Provisions) Bill 2022.
He said he did NOT support the “extension of Queensland’s existing Covid-19 emergency powers legislation”, arguing there was no longer “sufficient justification” for its ongoing limitations on human rights.
The Commissioner also made a number of extremely insightful comments regarding the legal status of the Chief Health Officer’s powers, in particular, whether there is any ‘right to judicial review’ of the CHO’s directives under the Qld legislation.
He also made a few swipes at the government’s claim that the ongoing “limitation on rights” was “necessary”, saying it had provided no “evidence” to support this.
Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Well, not so fast …
On page 8, everything suddenly takes a very dark and dangerous detour.
According to the Commissioner:
“the current framework can be significantly improved …by enacting PANDEMIC LEGISLATION like that in Victoria”.
Wait, what??
Doubling down even further, the Commissioner describes Victoria’s appalling legislation as being “fit for purpose”, and better able to protect human rights than the current arrangement.
The Laws Mr McDougall is referring to, were passed in Victoria late last year.
They insert provisions conferring enormous, additional, and PERMANENT emergency powers on the EXECUTIVE branch of government, OSTENSIBLY to help it ‘respond’ to ‘future pandemics’.
These extraordinary ‘powers’ allow the Premier and senior public health officials to declare a pandemic and impose indefinite lockdowns even if there are no actual ‘cases’ in the country.
Even worse, these draconian, and permanent, powers remove ‘habeas corpus’ and the privilege against self-incrimation.
They also cannot be challenged in the courts.
The Commissioner claims that such PERMANENT ‘PANDEMIC MANAGEMENT’ LEGISLATION ‘similar to Victoria and the ACT’, is more “compatible with human rights”.
Well it may be more compatible with his idea of human rights, but it isn’t compatible with mine.
In fact, the legislation he proposes, comes straight out of the World Economic Forum’s formula for ‘governance change’, and would overturn our traditional democratic processes and replace them with a technocratic ‘RULE BY COMMITTEE model similar to that in the EU.
The EU, you may recall, has a PRETEND ‘parliament’ where members are “elected”, but hold NO power and govern nothing.
All decision-making power rests in the so-called ‘independent’ committees, panels, commissions and roundtables the EU is notorious for.
IT is a sham ‘top down’ system of government, completely antithetical to the true meaning of democracy and ‘rule by the people’.
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Disclosures:
Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner was, until 2021, Edward Santow: a Young Global Leader. The Human Rights Commission enjoys close ties with the World Economic Forum and other global governance bodies.
