Page 2672 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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suppressed civil rights and political rights, as is already well known. Its incredible rorting of the system for personal interests is also well documented. Its violations and infringements of civil liberties have earned the Queensland Government the distinction of being included in the list of complaints to the US Department of State. To make sure such a situation cannot, in our country, lead to being involved in the suppression of the rights of the child, we should all work towards ratifying this convention.
I am pleased to think that our Government is looking towards this, because I would not want to think that we were out of step with any Western part of the world that gives these rights to the child. As far as I am concerned, if we have the RSPCA giving rights to animals, we must ask: what rights do children have? After all, these children are more important than animals. Children are our future. They are the people who will run this world. Therefore they should have the right to live in a loving, caring situation and be given every possible right due to them in order to become good citizens and be able to vote for democratic governments and thus give us good governments to look after this world that we are handing on to them. I support the Chief Minister in everything she said, and I find it absolutely incredible that Mr Stevenson would ask us to vote against anything like this.
MR DUBY (4.25): Mr Speaker, I view with great concern this motion put forward by Mr Stevenson today. The rights of children in this world are extremely important, I feel. We are talking about the ratification by the Australian Government of the convention on the rights of the child. Of course, that convention is based on the declaration on the rights of the child, which was made a long time ago - in 1959, I believe. Just for the purpose of the debate, I am going to read the principles of the declaration of the rights of the child:
Principle 1: The child shall enjoy all the rights set forth in this Declaration. All children, without any exception whatsoever, shall be entitled to these rights, without distinction or discrimination on account of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, whether of himself or of his family.
Principle 2: The child shall enjoy special protection, and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable him to develop, physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity. In the enactment of laws for this purpose the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.
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