Page 799 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 1990
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the question of human rights in the ACT. As we have seen before, its members are never short of words; they have been known to make statements on this matter, which I believe indicate at heart some goodwill in the area, but we have yet to see the product of any of the work that they claim to be doing on human rights. I believe that is an outrageous position, particularly given Mr Collaery's statement about the great harvest of legislation and his espousal of human rights causes in public. I call upon the Government to act immediately on the issue of human rights and to establish, as was provided in the budget, a human rights office in the ACT.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (6.05): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for most of her comments. I believe they pushed the debate along. I am very pleased to see that the Opposition is willing to debate these concerns. I am looking forward to the time, after an imminent Cabinet decision is resolved on a number of issues, when we can look at these issues on a consultative basis.
One of the most fundamental issues in this area is that these critical matters should not be used as grounds for taking exclusive, high moral tones or political points. There is a childlike giggle somewhere, Mr Deputy Speaker. The outcomes in this Territory should be peaceful and humanitarian. They should not be the outcome of conflict itself. I deplore any attempt to lower the human rights issues to a divisive game in this Assembly. It is probably just bad luck, given the pressure of work on the Government, that I am not able to trump this debate. I can assure, with great regret, that, given a couple more days and if the Leader of the Opposition had not been so sharp with her MPI, you might have heard a very interesting announcement.
The Leader of the Opposition referred to comments that I made about a harvest of legislation. I was referring to eight years of it - a great harvest of legislation that is awaiting this Territory. I gave a keynote address in this Assembly this week on a Cabinet-approved initiative to form a law reform commission in this Territory. We are going to come of age in that regard. For probably the first time in this Assembly, because I am fairly cynical now, I was personally depressed that the Leader of the Opposition did not even rise to note the paper or call for any discussion on it. I think that is the measure - and I am not arguing this - of the lack of her depth on these issues.
I will refer to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission by an acronym, HREOC. It is easier and will help the Hansard later. HREOC was here in another guise until recent years. It was withdrawn. The initiative has lain for years on the Federal Government to replace that needed apparatus in the Territory. A provision of $100,000 which the former Chief Minister says she made in the budget did not go, on my advice, to the full costs beyond about six months' operation for that function, and in any event I
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