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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (23 August) . . Page.. 3285 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

In the United States collecting signatures for petitions has become an industry in itself. Minority groups and those parts of the community who are not well organised will still be discriminated against. For example, I understand that there was a CIR in California on the subject of whether illegal immigrants should get free schooling for their children. Other types of community consultation processes are necessary to ensure that the loudest voices do not drown out the soft ones.

I found it interesting when Mrs Burke-or maybe it was Mr Humphries-said that the lobby groups in this town have unwarranted power. I would love to know who these lobby groups are. When I talk to people in the community, I can assure you that they are not well resourced. Some of them are very small community organisations that probably do not even have an organised structure.

Mr Moore: Animal Liberation.

MS TUCKER: Mr Moore interjects, "Animal Liberation." That is a well-known lobby group that has an international presence. I know who informs the work of the Greens. It is often very small groups of community people who have the community interest at heart and who represent a particular view of a minority. These are basic human rights issues we are talking about here.

Mrs Burke said that a referendum on daylight saving was a great example of a referendum because it showed that the minority could not have its way. The will of a small group of people in rural Australia who were concerned about the change to daylight saving was not respected when the majority of people said they wanted to have daylight saving. The argument apparently is that therefore this is a good thing.

We know that Aboriginal people are a minority in this country. Say we have a referendum on capacity building in Aboriginal communities. According to the logic of Mrs Burke, we would quite possibly see support for capacity building for the Aboriginal community denied. There is a serious question to be asked here. Mr Moore alluded to it in his speech. What are we talking about here? If we are so afraid of minorities, which seems to be the rhetoric from the side that are for this bill, what is the relationship between that fear and basic human rights? That is what it will come down to.

A bill of rights is one of the fundamental prerequisites the Greens will be seeking before there is any consideration of using this kind of referendum. Mr Humphries, as a good typical Liberal, talks about financial implications. He says, "We have to test any resolution for its financial implications." I want to see it tested for its human rights implications as well. The Californian referendum is another example of that. I do not know whether Mr Humphries would agree that illegal immigrants in our country should be denied any support at all. I would be very surprised if Mr Humphries thought that was a good outcome.

Proponents of CIR also argue that money does not influence outcomes. This is not the case. In a six-year study of the outcomes of voter-initiated referenda in four states in the United States, the highest spender won in 78 per cent of the cases. In California more is spent on CIR campaigns than on election campaigns for the state's legislature.

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