Critical Question 3

This paper is going to argue that Melbourne is a fair city, and by fair I mean treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination. The examples that I will be using for this paper are the freedom of beliefs:religion, politics, moral codes, etc. and equality between men and women.

The first factor that shows that Melbourne is a fair city is the freedom of beliefs; religion, politics, moral codes, etc. Having the freedom of beliefs shows greatly about how Melbourne is a fair city. It even says in the Australian constitution under Chapter V The States; Section 116 that  “The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth”. In one of our workshops on Justice Week we were to rank the different scenarios according to how unfair we felt it was, and everyone that took the workshop with me ranked “not being able to practise your religion freely” in their top 3. This shows that people believe that not being about to practise your religion freely is totally unfair, meaning that Melbourne as to be a fair place. Another point to proving that Melbourne is a fair city from the freedom of beliefs point of view, is the ability to speak out freely. In the ICCPR (The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) it states that, everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference and  everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice. The ability to be able to express what we want to when we want to shows that Melbourne is a very fair place. Some places in the world do not allow their citizens to say what they want to say. For example in North Korea Under the penal code, listening to unauthorized foreign broadcasts and possessing dissident publications are considered “crimes against the state” that carry serious punishments, including hard labour, prison sentences, and the death penalty. This shows that Melbourne is a fair place because of our freedom of speech policies and it leads me onto my next point of the absence of prejudice in Melbourne

Another important point is the absence of prejudice in Melbourne. By prejudice I mean preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience, Melbourne is a very lucky to not have prejudice citizens in its city. But not everywhere in the world has this for example, there was an incident  in Balitimore USA, where  police officer that had served 11 years exposed his police department for the corrupt place that it was. While he served his 11 years in the force and rose to sergeant he witnessed police targeting young black males even though there were young white males doing the same thing. He says that the reason to why the officers do not arrest the white males is that they are scared if the boy is the son of a judge or someone with authority, because by arresting this boy they could get themselves into a lot of trouble. So Melbourne is very lucky to not have a corrupt police force like some places in the USA. On one of our trails we went to a Mercy Place which is a retirement home, it had a special department on its grounds especially made for senior citizens suffering from dementia. While we were there we visited a woman and she talked about how they were planning to refurbish the dementia part of the grounds to make it more like their home. She also talked about the retirement home before she came to mercy place and how they also had a specific part for people with dementia which had everything to make them feel at home. Such as a post box, bus stop, supermarket etc. This shows that Melbourne does not have prejudice citizens making Melbourne a fair place.

Now some people might disagree with me by saying that there are prejudice people in Melbourne or there are laws that don’t allow people to say what they want. Firstly there a prejudice people all around the world, this world is not a perfect place but the majority of Melburnians are not prejudice to one another. There will always be people who disagree that’s in our human nature to do so. But the actions of one person should not be able to define a nation, and although there are prejudice people in Melbourne it is usually looked on as unpopular and illegal. Which leads me to my next point of the law. Now there are laws that restrict people from saying what they want to say but this is only if what the person is saying is affecting someone else’s well-being and the ability to feel safe. With the government allowing people to speak their mind freely they still have the responsibility to make sure what they say does not harm anyone else is any manner. So although there are prejudice people in Melbourne and the law doesn’t give you 100% freedom in what you can say, i still believe that Melbourne is still a fair place because of the points that I announced before. An example of this is the mosque that is being built-in Bendigo, a lot of the residents that live in Bendigo do not want to the mosque to be built mainly for racial reasons but the government is putting aside their prejudice acts and still going forward with it although there will be restrictions on the mosque itself. So this Melbourne is still a fair place.

So in conclusion, from the points that i have stated I believe that Melbourne is a fair city and by fair i mean treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination. Also acknowledging that there is a different side to the point but overall Melbourne is still a fair place

http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/~/link.aspx?_id=6ED2CAE61E7742A1B2C42F95D4C05252&_z=z

https://www.humanrights.gov.au/freedom-information-opinion-and-expression

http://www.buzzfeed.com/emaoconnor/baltimore-police-officer-tweets-up#.bh0pLv5wp