Page 4462 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 19 November 1991
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I am interested in parts of this legislation because, looking at it, I wonder how effective it will be in terms of actually countering discrimination. Things can always be tarted up. Language can always be used to get around any statute, and perhaps that will happen here. One example I can think of - there was not excessive discrimination, by any stretch of the imagination; but it is indicative - is the discrimination against a number of migrants after World War II - the "dumb wogs" from Europe who came out here. Certainly, there was some discrimination against them.
Most of them, I think, would say that it was fairly minor and did not cause too many problems; but it was somewhat niggling. Certainly, it was far worse than they might have experienced back home, for whatever reason. I can recall the case of my father, who acted in about 20 jobs in the Public Service from 1955 through to about 1965. He acted in those jobs and they always ended up being given to somebody else, even though he performed them well. The only real reason that could be advanced for that was that he was a poor, dumb Polack - and I think there was probably some discrimination there.
I might say, however, that he finally got out of where he was and had a very wonderful and excellent boss, the late Artie Duffell, for the last seven or eight years of his time in the Public Service. But, certainly, I can recall the frustration that he felt. That was the only real reason, although it was rarely said and could not be pointed to as such. I wonder whether, in the sort of case where people are clever enough to get around the legislation, it will be possible actually to point at people and say, "You are discriminating against that person on the grounds of race", for example, or whatever. Maybe not. I wonder how effective this legislation will really be.
I suppose I am also mindful of the fact that complaints were certainly made to my party in the days when we had the old Commonwealth Human Rights Commission, I think it was. We had complaints of reverse discrimination against people by that particular body. Perhaps that is something that also needs to be looked at.
However, the legislation here seeks to make an attempt to counter all possible types of discrimination. It creates a number of considerable powers - and I note that some of Mr Collaery's amendments relate to some of those, as do ours - which may well be a little bit overboard. I note that it also attempts to have the commissioner get parties together to reconcile their problems without the need to go any further. That is very sensible and very laudable. Indeed, anything aimed at conflict resolution, especially in this type of area, is far preferable to getting into effectively legal situations where people become adversaries and you have lengthy, drawn out processes that waste a hell of a lot of time, resources and, indeed, emotions of the people concerned.
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