A tribute to Peter Bailey
Peter Bailey, a remarkable advocate for justice, died in November 2021.
If he heard himself described in this way Peter would no doubt smile his gentle smile and protest that he was simply doing what needed to be done. His humility, and quiet dedication, were aspects of his being remarkable.
In 2001, Peter wrote an Opinion piece for this Journal – ‘On rights and responsibilities’ (2001) 26(5) Alternative Law Journal. He gave a succinct account of Australia’s diverse ‘shortcomings in domestic observance of human rights’: the 1998 amendments to the Native Title Act; lack of serious support for an Indigenous reconciliation process; incarceration of people who needed medical rather than custodial treatment; rejection of the Teoh doctrine; and exacerbation of the ‘trend to privilege’ and the gap between rich and poor through tax cuts and increased indirect taxes.
In 2022, these same human rights ‘shortcomings’ persist, to which can be added, for example, refugee detention, Indigenous incarceration rates, police violence, elder abuse, workplace bullying and harassment, disability discrimination, modern slavery and environmental degradation.
In his 2001 Opinion, Peter identified not an active assault by the state on our human rights, but a passivity that allows human rights violations to occur. Essentially, Peter blamed a failure of political leadership. Rather than take a principled stand, governments, oppositions and Ministers ‘asserted that this is what the people want’:
In the obsessive search for votes and power, they have pandered in an unprincipled way to the baser instincts of electors. They have not even tried to lead us as citizens towards a fully informed decision. The full facts, and the key relevant issues, have not been exposed. The ‘talk to the nation’ has become a means simply to gather votes, not to genuinely inform. Our actual or believed voting propensities have to a degree been responsible for these, in human rights terms, gross actions.
For Peter, that this could happen ‘seriously calls into question the nature of democracy’:
Without vision and maturity, ‘democracy’ will stand for oppression, not liberty; for single interests and prejudice, not wise judgment; for ‘wedge voting’, not the community at large. The human rights vision is not about economic success and ‘efficiency’ in the narrow sense. It is about realising, in economic and social life, mutual respect for the dignity of each person.
Now, as then, we look in vain for principled, rights-respecting, other-regarding leadership. What gives Peter’s analysis real weight, then and now, is the experience, knowledge and insight that informed it. Peter’s byline on his Opinion said, with typical modesty, only that he taught ‘law at the Australian National University’ (ANU). But when he wrote this damning criticism of Australia’s democracy and human rights record, Peter had already been at the ANU for 16 years after a 40-year career as a Commonwealth public servant.
Peter had worked in Treasury, and in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet – ultimately as Deputy Secretary – under Prime Ministers Menzies, Holt, McEwen, Gorton, McMahon and Whitlam. He was the inaugural Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Human Rights Commission until 1986. This record as a senior bureaucrat, working at the heart of Australia’s executive power, side-by-side with Australia’s political leadership for so many years, distinguishes Peter’s analysis of a continuing cause of Australia’s human rights failings.
A second career as an academic refined Peter’s insights. He celebrated his 25th year of teaching and his 85th birthday in the same year, soon after he had published his magnum opus, The Human Rights Enterprise in Australia and Internationally.
Peter’s legacy is a strong, simple and damning analysis – born of unrivalled insights into executive power – of why Australia continues to fail to meet its human rights obligations.
Published as ‘A timeless analysis of Australia’s human rights failings’ in (2022) 47(1) Alternative Law Journal 1