Page 4833 - Week 16 - Thursday, 29 November 1990
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Mr Collaery: From the Northern Territory.
MS FOLLETT: And yours is from Western Australia, I heard you say.
Mr Speaker, there is no getting over the fact that it was members opposite who acted to gag debate on that Bill, who acted, in fact, to deny consideration of human rights issues in the ACT. It was Mr Collaery who led the charge on that. So, his own work is not only well overdue but also, in my view, lacking a certain confidence. He has, in fact, tabled the document, not introduced it - a fact which I find inexplicable, given that he has any number of Bills, all of much less importance, that he has actually introduced today.
There is a marked lack of confidence in this piece of work. I will be studying this Bill with a great deal of interest and I will certainly not be taking up Mr Collaery's invitation to provide my comments to his law officers. I will provide my comments directly to him, as I believe the matter comes within his ministerial responsibility, although he may well wish to duck that, as he does so often.
Mr Speaker, I will say that I am genuinely very pleased to see this piece of whatever it is - tabled legislation - and I am also pleased to see that Mr Collaery has totally backed down on his previous position on the Commonwealth Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. I am glad to say that he has seen sense at last, and has seen the sense of a cooperative arrangement with that body. The attitude that Mr Collaery has taken to that very experienced and very conscientious body in the past has been a matter for shame in this house. It has been a matter which I believe has earned this Assembly some of the disrepute that has come upon it in recent months. He has backed down totally on that issue and I am very pleased that he has.
Mr Speaker, as I said, we will be giving a great deal of attention to this tabled Bill. I heartily wish that Mr Collaery had introduced it, not just tabled it. I do not know why he did not. I can only guess that there is, as I said, a lack of confidence in the scope of the Bill or in the drafting of it, but I do hope that it will be possible to proceed to its introduction into this Assembly as a matter of urgency because it is, indeed, an urgent matter.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (3.19): I must say that I am constantly astounded at the approach taken by the Leader of the Opposition. We are constantly being told by the Leader of the Opposition that we do not consult with the community. Here we have one of the most important Bills that will be debated in this house during the life of this Assembly - without question the most important Bill - and the Attorney-General takes the step of tabling it so that
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