Page 673 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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and the right of people to know the nature of legislation that is being brought to bear across the nation, in a cooperative, consultative way, amongst all the members of the nine governments. You need to understand the process.
Draft legislation was prepared as a template and presented to each of the states and territories as legislation which they might wish to adopt as part of the process of referring power to the commonwealth. You need to understand what the legislation was. It was not commonwealth legislation; it was template legislation prepared as a model by which the states and territories would refer power in relation to certain judicial issues and certain responses to terrorism to the commonwealth. It was our legislation; it was not the commonwealth’s legislation.
You are under a misapprehension. The legislation was state and territory legislation. The legislation was prepared as a template, a model which the states and territories might wish to pursue in their transferral of power to the commonwealth. I, as the Chief Minister and head of this government, said, “Well, I’m not prepared to agree to this regime in relation to terrorism without the people of the ACT having some opportunity to review the nature of the powers that I might refer or agree to refer.” Here we have today the new progressive, Mr Hanson, standing up and saying, “Well, this is outrageous. This is a betrayal of faith and of trust.”
There is apparently no way Mr Hanson would take into his trust the people of the ACT in relation to something as benign, according to Mr Hanson, as anti-terrorism legislation which, in the way it was drafted, breached just about civil liberty and human right known to man. As a result of its release by me, the commonwealth and every other government in Australia wound back the extent to which their legislation or their response breached civil liberties and human rights. I am enormously pleased with the result of the release of that particular legislation by me.
Nonsense is now being perpetrated that I in some way put at risk the territory’s relationship with the commonwealth. How dare I consult with the people of the ACT and let them see a piece of legislation? I am stunned that, in the context of an argument in relation to a more progressive approach to freedom of information, I am being pilloried for releasing information. My release of information is being used by the Liberal Party in this place as an argument against the government in relation to the release of information.
Despite the nonsense of double standards and the pure ignorance of the Liberal Party’s position in relation to this, it is interesting that the onion layers actually peel. We have seen in the last week or so sexist comments by Mr Hanson, and today we have seen, as the layers unravel, his embracing of John Howard’s attitude to civil liberties and human rights as expressed through his approach to the territory legislation. Rubber stamped and endorsed by Mr Hanson today is this: “I support the John Howard way in relation to civil liberties, human rights and anti-terrorism legislation.”
Mr Hanson: Talk about FOI, not about security legislation.
MR STANHOPE: Actually, you raised this subject. The issue of the release of the terrorism legislation was raised by you. This was a piece of draft legislation provided
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