The Liberal Promise: Anti-Discrimination Legislation in Australia

Abstract

Anti-discrimination legislation represents a halting step towards recognition by the state that women and minority groups (Aborigines, migrants, gays, people with a disability and those espousing unpopular religious and political views) constitute underclasses in our society. This study attempts to show that blind faith in the law as a beneficent agent of social change is misplaced. Not only does the liberal commitment to individualism undermine the communal or class-based nature of discrimination, but the legal culture itself operates to uphold the power of the socially superior. The author describes how such a subversive result can be achieved through the application of the ostensibly neutral principles of legal doctrine. Within a broad contextual framework and focusing on the Australian experience, this work examines the innovative substance and procedure associated with equal opportunity practices. In the conclusion, this critique of liberalism in action contemplates the implications of communitarian social theory for women and minority groups and finds that it is also likely to be wanting.

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