Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (25 November) . . Page.. 4577 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

obtainable standard of health. That in itself has the ability to bankrupt the territory. The right to education is pretty well established. Again, the right to work and to just and favourable conditions of work may not be too much of a problem because that is exactly what we have in Australia and in Canberra at present.

As I said, the government accepted the consultative committee's view that responsibilities are implied as part of the expression of human rights. So, a separate list of responsibilities isn't necessary. The committee recommends that in the preamble to the Act there should be explicit the notion that responsibility is inherent in the concept of human rights. That is a very vague statement and perhaps a rather dangerous one because if we are going to go down this path there is a lot of merit in having a separate list of responsibilities to counter some of these rights.

All in all, Mr Speaker, the government is absolutely hell-bent on pushing this particular piece of legislation. It does not even have the support of its own party interstate. Clearly, it does not have the support of probably the vast majority of Canberra citizens. It is all very well for the Chief Minister to say that 60 per cent of the submissions support it. There weren't a huge many, only people interested in this rather esoteric area of the law bothered to make submissions-and, of course, the Chief Minister will pooh-pooh percentages when it suits him. Nearly 90 per cent of people who wrote in about the gay and lesbian matters opposed such things as same-sex adoption. That didn't seem to concern him then but he certainly has jumped on this issue when only about 60 per cent of these written submissions support it.

If he feels that way I challenge the Chief Minister on something as fundamental to our system of democracy as a bill of rights, something that is going to affect every single act that is going to be passed in future, as well as existing Acts. (Extension of time granted.) Under this proposed model a court could indicate that the current acts we operate under are incompatible with basic human rights. Then the Chief Minister has to report to the Assembly and the Assembly might quite incorrectly take action on some of our very, very sensible legislation. All these things are going to have a very, very significant effect on the ACT.

This legislation-which has really snuck in because it is so esoteric and most people are not interested in it-is the most important and potentially most dangerous legislation we have ever seen in this territory. A lot of people are probably just starting to realise that this is something important, something we should be paying attention to. Because it is so important, because it affects everything that is going to happen in future-and has a significant effect too on a lot of existing legislation-it should not be rammed through the Assembly like the Chief Minister's pet hobbyhorse. Something as important as this should be put to the people of the ACT by way of referendum at the next election. It is going to have very significant ramifications on people's rights. It is going to have significant economic ramifications to the territory. It is going to have significant ramifications in every field of endeavour that people go about in this territory.

No other Australian jurisdiction has gone down that path. When it has occurred in democracies overseas in recent years there has been an increase in litigation. Criminals have attempted to get out of properly obtained confessions by seizing on human rights. It has been used probably more to the detriment of civil society than to the public benefit.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .