If Magna Carta says all men are treated equally, how can the Australian government run its "stop the boats" policy?
Freedom commissioner Tim Wilson faced a grilling on this and other questions about fundamental human rights from Year 6 students as he celebrated Magna Carta's 800th anniversary.
The Human Rights Commission has launched a new video and teaching resources for Year 6 and 10 students to help them understand the document's importance and relevance to modern Australia.
"Magna Carta is really cool!" Mr Wilson enthused to the students at Canberra's Red Hill School.
He urged them never to be apathetic about addressing human rights challenges in Australia and around the world.
Judging from their questions, there's small chance of that.
Along with wanting to know how asylum seeker policy fitted with universal human rights, students wanted to know why racism and dictators still existed, how the principles had spread all over the world and why King John didn't just cut the heads off the uppity barons back in 1215.
"It is hard to understand how an 800-year-old document written in Latin that has very few catchy phrases on it, very few quotable quotes, relates to how you grow up in this country," parliamentary secretary Scott Ryan told the students.
As for relevance of Magna Carta to asylum seekers, Mr Wilson said the stop the boats policy was about "equal and fair assessment of people who want to seek asylum in Australia".
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