Page 3720 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 18 October 2005
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MR MULCAHY: The Chief Minister says that that is rubbish, but I can see a number of scenarios looming whereby we are going to want a high level of trust and confidence between this territory and the commonwealth and I think that that measure of candour is now at some degree of risk.
The commonwealth has constitutional power to legislate in regard to the territories but, in the context of counter-terrorism initiatives, it has made a concerted effort to consult with all jurisdictions to achieve bipartisan national support for what can often be complex and challenging initiatives. One wonders whether Mr Stanhope’s actions may well lead the commonwealth to reassess whether it intends to continue to extend what is, in effect, a courtesy by continuing to consult and work co-operatively with the ACT on important and sensitive issues of national significance.
I can contemplate many scenarios whereby the commonwealth will have to speak, or potentially speak, to this territory on a confidential basis. I raised it the other week and it was met with a bit of a blank response from the health minister, but a major potential health issue is threatening the entire world at the moment and some very serious issues will have to be considered by the territory in discussions with the commonwealth. Major risks to our community are looming. I sought to explore some of those with the health minister. I can see that the measures that might be contemplated under extreme circumstances would involve bringing the Chief Minister into confidence.
If you were sitting in the commonwealth government, you would have realised that if you bring him into confidence on something there is a good chance that tomorrow it will be on a web site and you will read about it in the paper because he is worried about the rights of every individual and making sure there is compliance with the ACT Human Rights Act. The trouble is that the legislation that is the subject of this debate is being required because of the challenges being made against our society. As much as I hear that the Chief Minister is terribly preoccupied with the rights of those individuals who may be impacted upon by this legislation, I do not hear much said about the rights of the people going about their normal business, the people going about their day-to-day business, who are, in fact, threatened by the conduct of a minority who are willing to break all rules in our society and put lives at risk.
The commonwealth government and the states certainly are not producing this legislation because they enjoy exercising power or making tougher laws. Why would they be doing this sort of thing? In a perfect world, we would not need these laws because everyone would do the right thing. The fact is that everyone does not do the right thing, and in the world today the risk of terrorism is much greater. We simply cannot afford to be complacent with people who do not respect our laws, our freedom and our way of life. We have to worry about these people getting a perfect process of treatment, the same people who are willing to engage in suicide bombings and other terrorist acts. Why are we not worried about the people who want to go about their business in an orderly fashion, as most people in a civilised society want to do?
It was only a matter of weeks ago that we dealt with terrorist attacks in London and Bali. There were families in this country affected by that. Ask them whether they are particularly preoccupied with the legal rights of those who may have been intercepted on the way to those events as to whether they could actually prove they were not about to
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