Page 808 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 1990
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Ms Follett: On quality alone, Gary, quality alone.
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, quality may be a factor, Ms Follett, but I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of my colleagues. This is a partnership, and as much as I would like to rise in this place and say that this is a Liberal Government, the fact is that it is not. It is an alliance of three quite different parties which cannot be easily characterised in terms of ideological position. I think that as the history of this Government proceeds, and I think it will be a long history, we will see that there is quite strong evidence of the diversity of the people who comprise it.
Previous speakers in this debate pointed out that the Federal coalition has indicated its intention to abolish the human rights commission and I do not deny that, that is quite true. I want to indicate my own understanding of why the Federal coalition does not see the need for a human rights commission.
The first of those reasons is that, despite what members opposite might say, a human rights commission is not the only way in which the rights of citizens of this country or this Territory might be addressed. In fact, we have a common law in this country which has been developed over centuries, the object of which principally is to establish and entrench the rights of citizens of this Territory and of Australia as a whole. Those rights date back to Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights of 1689 and a whole series of important common law and legislative measures designed to protect the rights of citizens, originally in Britain but now in this country.
To pretend that we need a human rights commission to save human rights from a kind of vacuum is quite a reprehensible idea. It is a slap in the face for the long developed, highly cherished values and rights which we today in this country and in this Territory hold dear. I, for one, certainly do.
Mr Collaery referred to legislation on the part of this Government to guard against discrimination - an antidiscrimination Bill. That, I would argue, is the appropriate way for the ACT to address deficiencies in our law to do with human rights. That is the appropriate forum. I believe, Mr Speaker, that we can see in an appropriately drafted antidiscrimination Act the proper vehicle for picking up gaps or omissions in our existing laws and providing for better protection of the citizens of this Territory. For that reason I will support that Bill when it comes forward.
The other advantage, of course, of common law and legislative rights over rights that might be protected by international covenants is that the human rights commission has to report to a Minister. It does not have any executive or judicial powers, as I understand it. It
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