Page 250 - Week 01 - Thursday, 24 February 1994
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DISCRIMINATION (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 3) 1993
Debate resumed from 9 December 1993, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.44): Madam Speaker, the Discrimination (Amendment) Bill (No. 3) 1993 now before the Assembly, in terms of its substantive effect, essentially inserts one word into the Discrimination Act. It inserts the word "age" in section 7 of that Act. Section 7 in a sense is the operative section of the Act. It is the section which lists the criteria on which discrimination is unlawful. The rest of the Bill, the next six or seven pages, is essentially a list of exemptions from the operation of that particular provision.
Madam Speaker, one cannot argue with the concept of banning discrimination on the basis of age or, indeed, of any of the other matters which are referred to in section 7 of the Act. It is clearly a problem which is very much alive in this Territory. It is very much an issue that we need to be alert and vigilant about. If members have any doubt about that they need only look at the front page of yesterday's Canberra Times, where there is a report of a 28-year-old woman who was fired from her job allegedly on the basis that she had suffered a seizure, an epileptic fit, at her home, not at work, and that this constituted the second such seizure she had experienced in a period of nine years. We see in a case like that a vivid illustration of how legislation of the kind that we are considering today needs to be kept up to date and relevant, and actively employed to prevent discrimination of what I might call - this might be a sub judice matter in the near future - a quite outrageous example of discrimination.
I want to quote briefly from the article. One reference there is to comments made by her solicitor. I quote from that article in that respect:
Her lawyer, Ron Clapham, who is finalising a formal complaint to the Human Rights Commission, said it had been a clear case of discrimination. Epilepsy had already been tested in the courts as to whether it could be deemed an "ailment", as contained within the Discrimination Act 1991, and it had been ruled it did.
Under the Act it is unlawful to discriminate against a person by dismissing them because of an ailment.
"I was outraged", Mr Clapham said ...
I think we would all be outraged, Madam Speaker, if those are the facts of this matter. We need to be looking to see whether we can make our legislation comprehensive and effective for people who find themselves in positions like that of the woman referred to in this article.
The issue is not so much whether we achieve the outlawing of discrimination but how we go about doing that. My party certainly will be supporting the legislation before us today, with one small amendment. I do think, though, that we need to ask ourselves whether or not we have properly covered the field, and whether we have properly excluded the possibility of unforeseen and unreasonable consequences of this kind of amendment. As I have said, almost the entire Bill is taken up with exemptions from the concept that one should not
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