Episode 22: The People's Constitution by Bronwyn Kelly (Chapter 6 - Parts 10 & 11)

In Episode 22 Bronwyn Kelly reads Chapter 6 Parts 10 and 11 of her book, The People's Constitution: the path to empowerment of Australians in a 21st century democracy. In Part 10 she outlines how Covid-19 has made Australians more aware of their need not just for civil and political rights but for economic, social and cultural rights. They are also aware of how easy it was for governments world-wide to spend trillions during the pandemic to put their economies on life support and how countries like Australia that have enormous per capita wealth can easily afford to support all the economic, social and cultural rights Australians need.Australian governments have attempted to deny the rights of Australians and their obligations to us for decades but it is now apparent that this plainly abstemious mindset need not be the mindset for the future. The upshot of this is that Australians will only have themselves to blame if they continue to let governments off the hook in their obligations to us.Bronwyn finishes by asking that, since affordability is not an issue, why should we deny ourselves rights that other nations have?In Part 11 Bronwyn offers a practical option for enshrining the rights we need in the Constitution. This entails reversing the current permission system for conferring human rights on Australians. Instead of waiting for governments to finally grant rights to Australians, we can confer them equally on each other by establishing in the Constitution a National Agreement on Human Rights and Obligations. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com