Menzies House

Too many laws, too little justice

“Do not let us begin to think lightly of the law. Its rule, its power, its authority, are at the centre of our civilisation.”

                       Sir Robert Menzies, The Law and the Citizen

 

We have a legal system in Australia but do we have a justice system? To answer this question you must first remember that the paradox of the law is this: The law and justice are two separate matters even though the object of law, according to any reasonable interpretation, should be justice. There are many reasons why we have become a nation with too many laws and not enough justice over the last fifty years. These include a burgeoning volume of legislation, a culture obsessed with rights rather than responsibilities, and an increasingly unhealthy dependence upon government to act as a moral authority in our lives.

 

Australia has a common law system, which means that our laws derive from both statutes and case law.  We have a highly developed legal system that has a superior structure to that of other nations. However, the fact that we have a good car does not mean that the car is being driven well. Moreover, if there are too many cars on the road in any given area, it creates congestion and stress for people and slows everyone down.

 

Our legal system has become very much like the cars on the road. Furthermore, the major culprit has not been the courts but parliaments. Consider these statistics from an Associate Professor of Law at an Australian university: In 1956 there were 113 Acts of Parliament, totaling 821 pages of legislation. In 2006, there were 172 Acts of Parliament, totaling 8036 pages of legislation. The democrat in all of us says that this could be a good thing because an increase in statutory law at the expense of case law would reflect a situation whereby the elected democrats are making laws, not the unelected judges. However, the problem is this: when you create more statutes you don’t actually reduce the role of judges or courts; on the contrary, you increase their role. Why? Because a growth in legislation leads to a parallel growth in litigation. Consider this fact in light of the increased number of pages of legislation: In 1977-78 there were 300 matters filed in the Federal Court. In 2009-10 the number of matters filed in that same court was 3600. This is to say nothing of the number of appeals that resulted from such matters.

 

Unfortunately, a large volume of this legislation has been the direct consequence of a culture that exists within a paradoxical value setting. At one point, we want to be ‘individuals’ who are free to do as we please, yet at the same time we also want to be absolved of personal responsibility when things do not go our way. For example, the law of negligence has grown enormously since the 1960s. The situation we’ve created is not a healthy one: we want to be responsible for our actions when those actions produce a good result for us, but we often seek to find someone to blame or pay the damages when those actions lead to harm and injury. The expansion of the law of negligence has had the consequence of raising public liability premiums to a level that means community organisations suffer an unfair and unnecessary financial burden.

 

Therefore, the increase in laws does not necessarily lead to increased justice or a less stressful society. It simply leads to a situation wherein government becomes the moral arbiter of social conduct. As a conservative, I am not going to argue that the law has no place in manifesting morality. That argument just doesn’t carry any weight because most laws do have a moral – or immoral - dimension. However, the conservative approach has always been to emphasise the role of those intermediary organisations that are situated between the individual and society: most importantly, family and religious institutions.  A conservative maxim is essentially this: “Where goes the family and religion, so goes civilisation.” If you undermine the authority of the family and religious institutions, you don’t end up with an absence of authority; what you end up with is increased authority by the State. And how does this increased authority and power manifest itself? In an increased number of laws that determine what people are permitted to say and do. Consequently, we effectively find ourselves living in an increasingly secular, socialist and politically correct State, though one in which we can each console ourselves with the comforting notion that we are all ‘individuals’.  In such a state of affairs, there is little room left for justice and the common good.

 

Paul McCormack is a political observer who lives and works in Wagga Wagga.

 

 

 

 

Dick Smith and the war against large families

Paul McCormack discusses Dick Smith's call for population control:

There is a war going on in this nation essentially between two groups and my contention is that it is centred on a difference of opinion towards a single idea, and that so many policy positions and disagreements stem from this difference. The difference is this: one group sees humanity as a problem, the other group sees humanity as a solution. People who subscribe to the first school of thought argue that we need a carbon tax because they believe that humanity is causing the planet to warm. More generally, the consequence of this train of thought leads to positions that are anti-growth, meaning that little or no growth in the population is a favourable outcome. If you are opposed to a larger population, who is your natural target? Families, of course, though not just any families. To oppose families holus bolus would be a tactical disaster (politically) for the low-growth environmentalists. For this reason the war is being waged against big families.

Dick Smith has recently advocated for a State sanctioned two-child limit to families. Does this sound eerily similar to the policy of a famous communist country to our north? To put things in perspective closer to home, if Dick Smith’s policy had been the official government law in Australia over the past fifty years, there are many Menzies House residents (including myself) who would not be here today. Why does Dick Smith want to enforce a communist-style limit on the number of children Australians have? In his metaphorical phrase, it is to prevent our nation from resembling “a plague of locusts.” If you see humanity as a problem, it’s obviously more likely that you will stoop to such inhumane descriptions of your fellow human beings.

The vicious persecution of Andrew Bolt

Paul McCormack discusses the legal action against Andrew Bolt:

 “Some people run from a possible fight
Some people figure they can never win
And although this is a fight I can lose
The accused is an innocent man” - Billy Joel

Andrew Bolt is not a man who runs from a fight, he is not a man who exhibits a sense of hopeless despair either for himself or others, and he is not a man who suffers fools gladly. For all of these reasons, Bolt has become the bete´ noire´ of the left-liberals and the politically correct sophists in our midst. Andrew Bolt is a man who communicates with clarity and conviction, unafraid of bruising egos and certainly unabashed in decrying many of the modernist myths perpetrated by the Left.

Winston Churchill gave us many wise and memorable quotes and one that would be very pertinent to recite to Andrew Bolt would be the following: “You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." Andrew Bolt has always stood up for common sense and this has earned him the scorn of those who pander to the zeitgeist, most notably Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. The logical extension of the old adage that “a man is known by the company he keeps” must surely be that he is also known by the enemies he makes. Bolt has always attracted first-class enemies because of his forthright and pugnacious style and his refusal to kowtow to the modern political orthodoxies of the ‘stolen generation’ and ‘man-made climate change’.

There has recently been a Federal Court case in Melbourne at which Bolt has been made to answer a claim that he wrote a series of articles that were racist. Given that it’s a civil case, the complainant is relying on racial discrimination as grounds for the claim against Bolt. The articles related to assertions Bolt made in his Herald Sun column a couple of years ago that certain people may identify as aboriginal for purposes of gaining economic or social advantages. It is very difficult to see how Bolt’s comments were racially discriminatory and if the plaintiff is successful, a very bad precedent will be set, one that goes to the core of free speech. It will no longer be legitimate to even ask honest questions as to whether a person or group of people may be using racial identity as a means to secure advantageous treatment. It must be realised that this is a separate issue altogether to making derogatory and demeaning (i.e. racist) claims about a particular race, which Australian society rightly views as unacceptable.

The Times May Suit Tony

Paul McCormack on why he believes Tony Abbott shall be Australia's next Prime Minister:

I am not a member of the Liberal Party and I have never met Tony Abbott directly in person, although I have attended functions at which he has been the guest speaker. I hope that he is the next Prime Minister of Australia for a number of reasons. Notwithstanding my belief that some of Tony Abbott’s greatest enemies are within his own party, which will make his task much harder in the days and years to come, I am confident that he will be the next leader of our nation.

The first reason why I believe Tony will be successful is because he is not afraid of confronting opponents, unlike some of his ‘moderate’ colleagues who prefer to take the appeasement route every time. In fact, he assumed the leadership precisely because he was the only one of the three aspirants prepared to actually oppose Kevin Rudd’s ETS. The first occasion when I heard Tony speak was during my undergraduate university days in Canberra. He was the inaugural speaker at the St Thomas More Forum, an initiative that involved Australia’s best female journalist, Angela Shanahan, and numerous other Christians in the nation’s capital. St Thomas More is the patron saint of politicians so the forum became an event at which prominent public figures would discuss matters relating to politics and religion. Tony gave an excellent speech and then answered numerous questions. It was at the time of the furore over both the boat people and the Iraq War and he made some persuasive arguments to demonstrate why a Christian could justifiably support the Howard Government’s decisions to take a strong stance against people-smuggling and to join the United States in the Middle East conflict, respectively. Despite addressing an audience that, unsurprisingly for Canberra, was not very sympathetic to the Howard government, he came to that forum as a defender and not an apologist. Regardless of any nonsense from Rob Oakeshott about a gentle, consensual ‘new paradigm’, people accept that politics is adversarial and they actually desire and respect a leader who is prepared to fight and defend the causes he or she believes in.

Feminism and Socialism

Paul McCormack discusses the relationship between feminism and socialism:

“We’ve been warning the private sector that if they don’t act, we’ll act for them.”

“We’ve changed our rhetoric: they should put them (women) on boards because it’s the best thing for their business to do as well.”

“We need to get more women into parliament”

“We don’t have merit based appointments.”

If you watched Q&A last Monday, the above statements would probably appear familiar. They were proclaimed by Kate Ellis, the Minister for the Status of Women. If you’re wondering why we don’t have a Minister for the Status of Men, then you’re thinking along the same lines as me. But I digress. Read through the above statements one more time and, on reflection, can you discern a socialist agenda being advanced under the guise of feminism? Many of you probably got it upon first reading!

I selected those statements to highlight the strong link between feminism and socialism. They are both about an agenda in which traditional norms are undermined and both rely upon – indeed, are reinforced by – an activist and interventionist government. The first statement of Ms Ellis is probably the most obvious example of that link. What the Minister is saying is that if businesses do not employ a certain number of women, the government will determine that they do. 

It’s time for more “State” governments

The process of decentralising government in Australia should begin in North Queensland, writes Paul McCormack.

As a conservative who has watched the events of the past fortnight in Victoria with a considerable degree of renewed hope, it should come as no surprise that I am an advocate for an increased number of ‘State’ governments in Australia. However, I am not arguing for more State governments because they have been successful; I am arguing for more of them for the reason that State governments are not truly representative of the regions in a geographical or social context. However, current State governments are so enshrined in the Constitution that the changes made must be incremental rather than revolutionary. For this reason, advocates of regional government for the future must adopt the language of “States” to pursue our objectives and the Constitution is obviously the only means to achieve this end.

Green with envy

The cultural agenda of The Greens is based on envy, writes Paul McCormack.

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” - Sir Winston Churchill

The Australian Greens are the modern socialist party in Australia. Their media statements are replete with populist appeals yet this conceals a far more sinister agenda. In studying the recent electoral success of the Greens, much attention has been given to their apparent level of conviction. Yes, they do have a certain degree of conviction, as did Vladimir Lenin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot.  However, not enough thought has actually been given to what motivates the Greens and their underlying value system. I believe that in order to understand the Greens, one must understand not just a party that seeks power or influence – for this is the very nature of political parties! – but a party that is driven by envy.

An Unselfish Approach To Abortion

Pro-life activists in Australia need to adopt policies that appeal to all people of good will, writes Paul McCormack.

I recently watched a film called Bella. It is a short film by Alejandro Monteverde. It is set in New York City and it is about a young man named José (Eduardo Verástegui) who overcomes his own trauma and finds redemption through helping a young woman named Nina (Tammy Blanchard).  The central themes of the story are love and friendship, both of which enable a difficult situation to be turned into a positive experience. On another level, the film also emphasises unselfishness and responsibility. For this reason, it provides many important messages and lessons. It also inspired me to consider some options for the pro-life movement in Australia.