Page 5145 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 27 November 1991
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there would be some, and there certainly should be; but, as for the general principle of it being an offence to propose something, I do not believe that it is, and I do not believe that it should be.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Stevenson, you have not formally moved your amendment. Please do that.
MR STEVENSON: I move the amendments standing in my name on the - - -
MR SPEAKER: Are you moving the lot together or just this one?
MR STEVENSON: As I said, the ones on the typed sheet, leaving out the handwritten one.
MR SPEAKER: You have to move the handwritten one first.
MR STEVENSON: If that is the case, I move that and leave the others. I move:
Page 7, line 27, after "if", insert ", without reasonable cause".
MR DUBY (6.55): I am not sure where that amendment came from. I have not got it in the list of amendments here. The simple fact is that Mr Stevenson is making much of the wording in the Bill where it talks of proposing to treat a person or proposing to impose a condition or requirement. He asks, "How can somebody commit an offence by simply proposing to treat the other person unfavourably?". The answer is very simple, Mr Stevenson. If I run an advertisement in the paper offering employment and I put at the bottom of the ad, "Jewish Asian homosexuals need not apply", that indicates that I am discriminating against a whole class of people, not just a person, and that I am proposing to treat a person of that class with discrimination.
It is exactly the same with "proposes to impose a condition or requirement". I could say something along the lines of, "Married women need not apply because they might fall pregnant. Therefore, I do not need to employ them". That clearly indicates that I propose to treat them unfairly or propose to impose a condition.
Frankly, Mr Stevenson knows that as well as I do. I think that what he is doing here is filibustering; he is simply trying to hold up the passage of this Bill. Whilst his motives for his own electorate may well be sincere, the bottom line is that he has made his objections to the Bill loud and clear and obvious in the Hansard. I am sure that he will be able to provide copies of many of the things he has already said and they should meet the requirements of those for whom he is speaking tonight.
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