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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (23 October) . . Page.. 4030 ..

MR STANHOPE

A human rights commissioner will be established. To avoid proliferation of new institutions, we accept the committee's recommendation to extend the functions of the Discrimination Commissioner. The Discrimination Commissioner will be called the human rights commissioner to reflect her broader functions.

The human rights commissioner will have the power to review territory law but, in keeping with the committee's recommendations, the human rights act will not create a new complaint mechanism as this would conflict with the role of the courts and tribunals. Through education programs, the commissioner will work to ensure that everyone in our community is aware of human rights. Through this process, we will build a stronger, fairer community.

There are two areas in which the government will depart from the committee's recommendations. First, we accept in principle the committee's recommendation that economic, social and cultural rights should be given the same status as civil and political rights. But, having considered the unique position of the ACT, the government has decided not to incorporate economic, social and cultural rights directly into the law at this time, as proposed by the committee.

Nevertheless, this does not mean that we do not consider these rights to be just as important as civil and political rights. We are committed to incorporating economic, social and cultural rights into government policy and planning, and will explore ways in which that can be achieved. At this stage, we have decided to take a more cautious approach because of the constitutional and service delivery arrangements in our jurisdiction. There are features of territory government which are unique and which limit our capacity to have full and total control over such matters.

The ACT is also committed to a number of intergovernmental agreements. These agreements require the ACT government to act in a particular way or to use a certain set of guidelines in determining how services are to be provided. Agreements in the areas of health, education and housing most specifically fall into this category. In addition, some services are provided by Commonwealth agencies. The Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Commonwealth Privacy Commissioner provide services to the ACT that are complementary to their Commonwealth functions.

Secondly, the bill will not provide a new right of action in the courts, which was also recommended by the committee; nor is the Supreme Court being given a power to make a specific declaration of inconsistency. This is because questions of statutory interpretation can already be brought before the courts and tribunals in the course of existing actions, such as judicial and merit review.

Although there is no new right of action to the Supreme Court, the court will still be performing its important role as a court of appeal on questions of law. We expect that the court will, as part of the normal decision making process, form an opinion on whether a law is consistent or inconsistent with rights set out in the legislation. In this way the Assembly will be alerted to any problems in the law.

Let me stress that the government's model will ensure that human rights are taken into account when developing and interpreting all ACT laws. In this way, human rights

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