ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that there is a paternalistic paradigm that operates with respect to women and Indigenous Australians that reflects an enduring tension in political liberalism between autonomy and protection. This paradigm presents an imperfect analogy for thinking about children's rights, because children are in a literally paternal relationship. The paternalistic paradigm with respect to children, therefore, is not necessarily oppressive (as it is for other groups), but it nonetheless operates to bind understandings of children's rights to political understandings of autonomy and protection in problematic ways.