Page 804 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 1990
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Mr Collaery: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, that has nothing to do with this debate. It is irrelevant.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. Please stick to the point, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: I think it is relevant because it illustrates the lack of action that I am talking about. It is just another example of this Government's general lack of action.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: I accept your point about lack of action, Mr Berry, but I think the previous matter has been well and truly canvassed.
MR BERRY: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your acceptance of the point about the lack of action by the Government.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: I accept its relevance, Mr Berry. Please continue.
MR BERRY: May I say, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you will not keep the chair too long if you keep that up.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think you are playing with words, Mr Berry. Just continue with your speech, please.
MR BERRY: Mr Collaery's lack of action has been demonstrated again today. Of course, there is an urgent need to have an office of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in the ACT, despite the bleating by Minister Collaery. The failure to provide one leaves all ACT citizens as second-class citizens in this country.
A member: You had seven months.
MR BERRY: Well, we will get back to that in a moment. The need is greatest for those less privileged in society, but in its philosophy, the Government opposite has not demonstrated that it has much concern about those who are less privileged.
One of the most intriguing things about Mr Collaery's speech is his selective amnesia on what he said on previous days about the issue of human rights in the ACT. In a press release on 25 January, two months ago, he whined again that he had been found out by the Leader of the Opposition. He said:
I pressed the Follett Government for months from the outset to bring forward equal opportunity, privacy, anti-discrimination including sex discrimination legislation, the models for which already exist in the Commonwealth and other States.
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