As you may know, the responsibility for developing the Government’s response to SARC’s report has moved to the Premier’s office. We understand that a decision will be made in the next few weeks on the future of the Victorian Charter.
Given that you have already undertaken the hard work of writing a submission to SARC, hopefully preparing a very short letter (even one or two paragraphs is fine) shouldn’t take too much time! It’s also particularly important that you do so given that we understand a concerted letter writing campaign is being undertaken by the Charter naysayers.
As I’m sure you are aware, SARC’s report was recently tabled in the Victorian Parliament. However, very disappointingly, the report failed to reflect the overwhelming evidence contained in the vast number of submissions that were made by organisations and individuals, including your own submission. In particular, SARC’s report fails to acknowledge that:
- there is very strong community support for the Charter ‑ of the 3,842 submissions that were made to the review, over 95% of submissions support or called for the strengthening of the Charter;
- there is strong evidence that the Charter is delivering benefits to Victorians, including:
- enhanced consideration of human rights in the development of laws and policies;
- improvements in public service design, delivery and outcomes;
- remedies for a range of individual and systemic injustices; and
- predicted adverse consequences of the Charter have been proven unfounded and incorrect.
If the Victorian Government were to adopt the recommendations made by SARC, Victoria would become the first state in the developed democratic world to substantially weaken the legal protection of human rights.
It is therefore vital that interested organisations and individuals remind the Premier and his Government that there is strong community support for the Charter.
If you’d like any assistance to prepare a short letter or have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Further information about what you can do is also available at http://www.hrlc.org.au/content/strengthen-the-victorian-charter/.
And I’d love to hear from you if you do take the time to write a letter and would be happy to post a copy on our website.
Best regards
Ben
To contact the Premier:
Email: ted.baillieu@parliament.vic.gov.au
Post:
Office of the Premier
GPO Box 4912V V
Melbourne, Victoria
Australia, 3002
Ben Schokman
Director — International Human Rights Advocacy
