Australian political thought has been described as having “never been shaped into coherent and well-established bodies of doctrine which the parties guard, expound and apply.” This is despite some commentators suggesting Australian political thought can be characterised as fundamentally utilitarian and others that it can be characterised as fundamentally conservative. While distinct – utilitarianism being traditionally associated with radicalism – both traditions share a common philosophical commitment. Both Benthamite utilitarianism and Burkean conservatism take rights to be ultimately instrumental. This paper looks at some of the formative historical debates in Australia and assesses the extent to which the commitment to rights is either natural or instrumental. It looks at the debate over terra nullius, claims for representative institutions in the NSW penal colonies, the rise of the Chartist movement, and a number of constitutional debates leading up to federation. While natural rights discourse is not invisible in these debates, it is fleeting and does not appear to fix a frame for future discourse. This corroborates our hypothesis that while there is a permanent commitment to liberal rights in Australian political discourse, it is a distinctively instrumental commitment that separates political discourse in Australia from many other countries.
