Page 3296 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 October 2006
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restrictive that could be put up. So that is another example of where the Human Rights Act is disappointing and puts us in danger as ordinary law-abiding citizens. We continue to reiterate our view that there is no need for legislation such as the Human Rights Act in the territory.
That said, it is important to have legislation that works. If the government of the day passes legislation in the Assembly, it is important that it works. It is important, if we have to have such legislation, that the opposition make constructive suggestions to ensure that it is effective. What the government are doing here is an attempt to meet their budgetary requirement to save $400,000. What they are proposing to do—to remove the position of president and have three commissioners instead of five—seems to be a good way of doing that; it is an efficient use of resources. But I will watch very closely how many consultants they use, because that is a way in which that $400,000 saving could be whittled away very quickly. I would certainly counsel the government to make a maximum effort to achieve the budgetary saving of $400,000.
It was one of the Chief Minister’s pet vanity projects to have a Human Rights Act and our calls to have it abolished are hardly going to be taken on board by the government. But, while we will support the bill and will not be suggesting any amendments, I reiterate those points because I think a lot more money could be saved. If the government is serious about saving money, it does need to look at just how far this act is affecting the bureaucracy. I have heard instances, for example, of legislation with no possible human rights angle being delayed by several months. Some gaming legislation put forward fairly recently is a case in point. I understand that, because the bureaucracy had to go through and dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s and look at things like the Human Rights Act, it took about an extra couple of months of efforts by various officers.
All that costs money and the government is in a deficit situation and has budgetary problems. So, noting that the government will not get rid of its pet project, the Human Rights Act, I suggest that the very least it can do is look at further ways of saving money in this area and make sure it monitors very closely the use of consultants or anything like that; otherwise, this $400,000 planned saving will be a mythical one.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (12.16): The Human Rights Commission Amendment Bill 2006 may be setting up the commission for failure before it even begins. In his presentation speech, the minister went to great lengths to try to paper over the fact that the various human rights commissioners have had their collective budgets slashed by 50 per cent. It is telling that the minister spent the greater part of his speech defending these cuts rather than explaining the purposes of the new commission. I suppose it is a positive sign that the minister could at least recognise a range of the criticisms that the proposal would attract from reasonable people who are informed and involved in the area of social infrastructure and government accountability. Well, he got it right!
The minister said that I previously suggested that this was a case of the government stepping away from its commitment to high-quality, accessible statutory oversight services for the ACT. I did say it before and I will say it again. The fact is that this is not, as the minister asserts, simply a matter of seeking to get the best value for the community from the limited funds available. It is a matter of priorities. It is a fact that the reduction in funding for the Human Rights Commission is far, far greater than the reduction imposed on many other government agencies and functions. Regardless of the supposed
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