Page 4454 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 19 November 1991
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We approved the drafting instructions in April 1990. This received front page treatment in the Canberra Times on 11 April and was the subject of an editorial on the following day. Six months later - I stress that in relation to how long it took the Commonwealth, years ago - a draft Discrimination Bill containing 129 clauses was released for public comment; that is, on 29 November. And, contrary to some information given by Ms Follett's office to the Canberra Times whilst I was out of this Territory in Japan, a copy of the draft Bill was forwarded by me to Sir Ronald Wilson, president of the Federal Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, on 12 December 1990.
The Bill received wide national - and, I understand, some international - circulation. Written submissions - some of them extremely detailed - were received from over 40 individuals and organisations, including the Commonwealth Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, the South Australian Equal Opportunity Commission, the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Board, the Women's Electoral Lobby and other women's groups, the Conflict Resolution Service, the Law Society, various HIV support organisations, disability and ethnic organisations, and so on.
The submissions total some 400 pages, on my advice, and a proper historian considering this historic Bill would need to have reference to the schedule of all of the submissions received, which clearly point out its very positive nature, contrary to the catcalls. The trouble for government members is that I did my homework for once and I have got them cold. I have the 400 pages, and these groups did not say that it was terrible. In the detail stage - and you had better get your breakfasts ready - I will read it down your throats for the next couple of hours, because it is all there.
I now turn to the rest of the timetable, for the record. Submissions for public comment closed on 22 February 1991 and the final draft Bill was available on 27 May 1991 - a few days before the Government fell. The timetable of 13 months between Cabinet approval and the Bill beats by a mile the years and years that the Territory waited under Labor for its own legislation.
I say this not as an expression of personal pique - although, of course, I cannot understand why, unlike her colleague Mr Connolly, Ms Follett should be so cruel and totally disingenuous in her comments on the radio. The fact is that modern Acts record the date of the presentation speech. Scholars, lawyers, courts, judges and historians go to the presentation speech to find out the history of the Bill.
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