Page 2680 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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subcommittee, a subcommittee that I know in fact, but I stress that this is a draft passed for adoption as a draft. It has not been passed for adoption as a convention. The draft will be considered, as the Chief Minister correctly pointed out, by the third committee of the UN General Assembly on Friday, the 17th, and it is going before a plenary session on Monday, the 20th. That will aptly be the tenth anniversary of the adoption by the UN General Assembly - with your leave, Mr Speaker, I will refer to it as UNGA from now on - of the declaration of the rights of the child which, as we all know, is scheduled to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986.
Mr Speaker, the convention is designed to be an instrument to protect young persons. It contains a number of safeguards. For those of us who follow these matters in this country and internationally, the draft is not all to the Australian Government's satisfaction, nor to the satisfaction of successive governments who have worked on it and the vast and large number of dedicated and competent Australian diplomats who have worked towards the achievement, the great achievement, that the present draft represents.
The task of gaining consensus in the UNGA is almost impossible these days, as Mr Richard Woolcott indicated only a few weeks ago in a speech to the United Nations Association of the ACT. For example, article 6 of the proposed draft is on the right to life. Every child has the right to life, and states are to take measures to ensure the child's survival and development. I would not take the time of the Assembly to tell you what the history of those few words has been in the drafting subcommittee.
Mr Speaker, consensus has been reached, compromise has been reached. The question of Australian ratification of the convention does not come into it at the present time. I have informed Mr Stevenson of that. He has other views. In Australia we will not be in a position to ratify the convention until, firstly, the draft has been adopted by the General Assembly, and that is a matter that, admittedly, is a few days away. But that is only the adoption of a draft. Then, secondly, it is the Australian practice that that draft will be referred back to the Attorney-General's Department. It will go to the human rights section of the Federal Attorney-General's Department, and they will pursue consultations in a laid down format. Indeed, Senator Tate undertook just recently, on 2 November 1989, in the Senate - in the other house - that the ratification of this draft, if it does occur, will only be done by the Australian Government after the terms of the convention are settled and further consultation with State and territory governments takes place.
There is almost a non sequitur about the motions that Mr Stevenson has put, because to my knowledge much of the core of the proposed convention has already been adopted by Australia in the international covenant on civil and
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