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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2389 ..
Mr Stanhope
: Bill, it was the issue which tipped us over the line.MR STEFANIAK
: Oh, I'm sure it was!Mr Stanhope
: It's why you're in opposition, mate.MR STEFANIAK
: I would suggest it might be something like you said on Bruce Stadium. I don't think anyone was remotely interested. No-one in the community has ever come up to me and said, "Look, we need a bill of rights."When you first started canvassing it, when you first started having your public meetings, four people turned up at Tuggeranong, and I was one of them. That really shows the volume of real interest. You can single out groups, and it is interesting to do that.At this stage I am not going to get into a detailed argument about all the pros and cons of what is in your document. Obviously you are going to bring in an act and we will leave that argument for another day. People came of their own volition to six public meetings. This was not a deliberative poll; it was not someone speaking to a certain interest group. The biggest of these meetings was attended by about 40 ordinary citizens.
We need to compare that with the 400 or 500 people who crammed into Aranda Primary School because they were a bit worried about the construction of a road which would affect their suburb. That is something which you were stuffing up. You could say that we might have stuffed up in the case of school closures, where 400 or 500 people attended meetings because they were worried about what was going to happen to their school. People get out and attend these meetings because they have a real interest in these sorts of things.
But, Mr Chief Minister, that is not the case in respect of what you are advocating. Whether you want this legislation or not-and I will be strictly neutral now-whichever way you look at it, it will probably, if passed, be the most fundamentally important piece of legislation that this Assembly has introduced since self-government. That is why the opposition feels something like this should be put to a referendum. Like any question, it should be properly argued out and this can be done quite easily at the next election.
This legislation is of fundamental importance and it will affect many other pieces of legislation that come through this parliament. Even if you have a proviso in an act that says, "Right, bill of rights, the human rights act not to apply to this,"it will still affect every piece of legislation that comes through this place. It will affect the way our courts operate and it will affect the relationship between the parliament, the executive and the judiciary and the way in which they operate. It is absolutely crucially important, fundamental legislation in terms of its effect not only on this parliament but indeed on our society. That is why, Chief Minister, I think you have gone about this in very much the wrong way.
That is why, on behalf of the opposition, my colleague Mr Smyth is moving an amendment. First and foremost, he is doing so because of the very issues around whether we need this and whether you have gone about this in the right way. Also, the
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