I heard Cardinal George Pell speak at the Brisbane Institute last night and Jack Waterford in the Canberra Times has a pretty good precis of what he said.
The Brisbane Institute billed it as:

Cardinal Pell considers questions such as: Is democracy only secular? What role can the Catholic Church and its moral vision play, and have they played, in strengthening democracy? How does “religious capital” strengthen political society? What is the bishop’s critical role in building a culture of life? And whyis belief in God important to the health of a democratic society?

In fact it was an intellectually slight lecture against a bill of rights.
How can you discuss a bill of rights without defining exactly what you mean by one? There are a lot of differences between a Constitutional Bill of Rights, for example, and a legislative Charter of Rights, but Pell lumped them all together.
He seemed to think that rights were best left up to the people, via the legislature, and kept well away from judges. How do you do that when every piece of legislation embeds rights which are then subject to potential interpretation by the courts?
There is a false dichotomy in the general bill of rights debate which is that you have a choice to have a bill or not. You don’t. The choice is whether you have major and minor rights sprinkled around a galaxy of legislation, or whether you collect the most important of them into one piece of legislation and decide the relationship between them, as in which rights are more fundamental than others. A further choice is whether you imbed that document in the constitution, where it can only be changed by a referendum supported by a majority of voters in a majority of states, or in legislation, which can be changed by a simple majority in parliament.
The idea that you can keep laws away from judges is bizarre.
I also found it a little bizarre that his Eminence was putting such a stress on the powers of democracy when he is a senior office holder in an organisation that is famously undemocratic, and which itself runs a legally recognised state. If there had been time I would have asked him for his thoughts on how his belief in the power of the people could be harnessed by the Roman church ot make it more effective.
Others might like to answer this question below.

Robyn Williams’ misuse of a Spectator review gets a run in today’s Australian – Cut and Paste.
They also add some cautionary remarks about peer review from Terence Kealey who is VC of The University of Buckingham. The full text of Kealey’s piece is at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3827719.ece, and that of the Spectator review at http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/books/598831/no-need-to-panic-probably.thtml.

Last July the Queensland Government instituted the “Urban Land Development Authority” which amongst other things would have the right to compulsorily acquire land from private land holders and sell it to developers who could then make a profit from it.
The idea has spread to New South Wales, as this report in the Sydney Morning Herald explains.
It is an outrageous breach of private rights, but will it move a vote?

I’m sceptical of the “booze epidemic”, particularly as I’ve been unable to find anything justifying the claim. But now something authoritative has come to light. According to AAP:

The NSW auditor-general’s report found there were 20,475 alcohol-related assaults (ARAs) statewide in the 2006-07 financial year.
The figure has risen steadily through the early 2000s from the 10,305 ARAs recorded in 1997-98, according to the report released.

That’s a significant increase, even allowing for some population growth, and is way ahead of being proportionate to any increase in alcohol consumption by any group that I’ve seen in anything that’s been put forward to justify the “booze epidemic”. In fact, as this, according to the police, is related to licensed premises, and as the “epidemic” is alleged to be occurring amongst underage drinkers, it’s an even larger percentage increase.
What do the Auditor’s General in other states say? Is a similar increase evident in other states? If not, and assuming that alcohol consumption patterns are relatively homogenous across Australia, that would indicate issues specific to New South Wales, and not necessarily specific to increased consumption at all.
Which means I’ve probably talked my way out of my headline being correct.

The Hatfield Dodds, Lin and Steve, were about the only power couple that I could spot who both got a guernsey to the 2020 Summit. Lin’s now topped that to make herself a household name by withdrawing from the Olympic torch relay.
It’s raised some interesting posts from some ethnic Chinese. On Line Opinion isn’t currently running an articles about Dodds, or forum threads, but we’ve had emails coming to us like this:

Lin Hatfield Dodds’s action to cancel her torch relay role is an insult to 1.4 billion Chinese people. Hereby I protest on their behalf. Her action only reminds us of your church’s role in the past 200 years in China’s history: the forepost of collonisation and the glorification of it.
Enclosed is this url: http://junshi.daqi.com/bbs/00/1959561.html
Have a look at these photos showing people who worked as slaves for Dalai Lama.
Regards
Zhang

And this:

Isn’t it hypocritical of Lin Hatfield-Dodds to chastise China ‘for what is happening in Tibet’ when she, as head of the Australian Council of Social Service and of UnitinCare, would be so acutely aware of the plight of the Australian aborigines who are treated almost as dogs, who are left hopeless and hapless, with diseases and poor health and living in slums, and have a low life expectancy. Did she protest at the Sydney olympic flame and the Sydney Olympics? Is she really genuine at all? Did she protest at the genocide of aborigines who land her ancestors invaded from afar, and killed, and poisoned?

And also this:

Lin Hatfield Dods reusal to join the torch relay due to concern of humanrights in china is purely a hypocritcal thing to do. She had better check her own homeland when come to issus of human rights. The aborigines of australia have been treated like dogs for decades.Children of the aborigines are have lost many generations when they were taken away from thier family.They do not even who their parents are.The austrakian prime minsters have the guts and decently to apologies on the half of people of australia for the evel things that they have suffered for so long. So Lin Har fiels Dods, is the human rights in australia worst than the tibeten claims, so wny she never protest during the olympic games in sydney .So pleae check your own country’s human rights action before you decide to boycoott the bejing olympic run