This was quite interesting, but more by virtue of who was delivering it than the oration's actual content. Justice McHugh's approach was to enumerate instances of deficiencies in the existing protection of human rights in Australia (focusing on immigration and detention, racial discrimination, and counter-terrorism laws) and argue that the alternatives to a (constitutional) bill of rights - ordinary legislation, common law, implied constitutional rights - are inadequate; he spent some time on the related arguments that the Westminster system of responsible government, independent judiciary, etc provides the best guarantee of human rights, that a bill of rights would be inconsistent with parliamentary sovereignty, and that such an instrument would politicise the courts and diminish respect for the judiciary.
Conversation afterwards was lively. Shaun, Jarrod and I repaired to the Corkman for fish and chips, a drink, and a fairly solid argument (mostly me v SEG) about first a variation on the old capitalism v socialism thing, and then (more on point) the legitimacy of implied constitutional rights; I must admit, Shaun probably ended up having the better of the first of those, but I'd score the second (which took place on more equal terrain, I suppose) as a hard-fought draw.
Plenty of others at the oration, including (very much without limitation) Nicolette, Vegjie and Sunny, which is par for the course with these things.
