Page 3099 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 12 September 1990
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MS FOLLETT: I believe that it is important that all members of the community can be assured that they have the protection of ACT legislation in the event of any incident.
Part V of this Bill prohibits discrimination on the grounds of impairment. This is an important provision which is not covered in Commonwealth legislation. The Bill will prohibit discrimination on the grounds of both physical and mental impairment. In doing so, it tackles an important area of community prejudice and misunderstanding by including the presence in the body of organisms causing disease as part of the definition of physical impairment. This provision, which has been adopted in equivalent Victorian legislation, will prohibit discrimination against people with the HIV virus. Also under part V, a blind, deaf, partially sighted or hearing impaired person is protected from discrimination on the grounds that they are accompanied by a guide dog.
Part VI of the Bill deals with discrimination on the ground of age. Again, this extends protection to an area not covered by the current Commonwealth legislation. It is an area which even the States with longstanding anti-discrimination protection have only recently covered. This is a particularly important provision of the Bill because all too often aged persons find that they are either patronised or blatantly discriminated against and exploited while assumptions are made about their intelligence and their capabilities simply because of their age.
For each of the types of discrimination I have mentioned the Bill specifies the areas of activity in which the discrimination is unlawful. The basic areas of coverage include employment; membership of associations; the provision by a body of authorisations or qualifications; education; goods and services; accommodation; and superannuation. Naturally enough, there are certain exemptions or qualifications to the general application of the Bill. For example: the right of people to decide who they do not wish to employ or accommodate within their private household is respected; single sex schools will be allowed to remain; equal opportunity schemes may still be established for members of particular groups; and participation in competitive sporting events where strength or stamina is relevant will be exempt for the purposes of sex or disability discrimination.
For the purposes of superannuation, discrimination on the grounds of a person's sex will be allowable where it is justified by statistical or actuarial evidence. In view of the possible complications for existing superannuation schemes, the Bill provides for the Chief Minister to allow up to two years' grace before the relevant section comes into operation. Apart from prohibiting various types of discrimination, the Bill provides a number of other protections. For example, the Bill will make it unlawful to victimise people who make complaints about infringements of their rights. It also makes sexual harassment unlawful.
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