Page 796 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 1990
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I would like to turn particularly to the issue of a human rights office for the people of the ACT, and I ask Mr Collaery in particular: what action, if any, is he taking about the establishment of an ACT office of human rights? I offer no defence whatsoever for a Federal Labor government which closed down the ACT office of the human rights commission. My party and I opposed this move, as did all my Federal Labor colleagues. It was a wrong move. We fought it at the time, and we have been fighting it ever since. I support the re-establishment of an office in the ACT, and that is a matter of public record. It is the reason that I provided funding for it in the budget last year. That budget was passed by this Assembly. That budget was voted for by Mr Collaery. Why does Mr Collaery not support the establishment of a human rights commission office in the ACT? Why does he not get on with it, now that it is his job to do so?
I do not seriously expect Mr Collaery to support me and my party on human rights. There is, after all, a huge ideological gulf between Mr Collaery and me on this issue. The Labor Party has traditionally supported the weak, the disadvantaged and the underprivileged in our community. On the other hand, the Liberal Party and its conservative cohorts are the supporters of the privileged in our society.
Mr Collaery now is in a Liberal government. As is often said, if you waddle like duck, talk like a duck and hang around with other ducks it is pretty likely that you are a duck. I think we would all agree that Mr Collaery is a duck. It is the duck season, even as we speak.
We know the position of the Liberal Party and, by the closest possible association, Mr Collaery's position on the human rights commission. Part of the Federal platform of the Liberal Party is the abolition of the human rights commission. Is this because it has a better vehicle for the protection of human rights? No, of course it does not.
The Liberal Party would have as a substitute for action another advisory committee - just another set of words, another set of talking heads. Why do the Liberals attack and call for the abolition of the human rights commission? The commission seeks to defend and strengthen one of the nation's most cherished ideals - namely, that every one of us should get a fair go.
I would like to remind the Assembly of some of the details regarding the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Under section 11 of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act, the commission has the power:
... to inquire into any act or practice that may be inconsistent with or contrary to any human right; and -
(i) where the Commission considers it appropriate to do so - to endeavour, by
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