Page 5154 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 27 November 1991
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force that business owner to pay for the marketplace discrimination. I recall no-one commenting on that area and suggesting why it is that a feature of the marketplace should be paid for by people in business.
Mr Collaery earlier brought up the point that there was no definition of religion. If clause 11 goes through, there should be a definition of religion. Otherwise, what constitutes discrimination on the grounds of religion is open to wide interpretation that most people and particularly religions may not agree with.
Clause 11 also talks about what is reasonable and what is unreasonable. I have a difficulty with this. Who decides these things? We have a human rights commissioner or a discrimination commissioner who has tremendous powers to determine these things. That person is bound by practically no rules, certainly not by any precedent. There is no history of problems being resolved by hauling people before such tribunals. Traditionally, in our society problems have been resolved before the courts. Down through the ages, people's problems have been resolved in the courts, and that is where we get our protections from. But there will certainly be more to say on that as we go through other clauses.
Clause 12 talks about commission agents. It is yet another clause that does not allow the business owner to determine how best to operate the business. Think for a moment. We are forcing business people to take on employees who may not be suitable for the betterment of the business. In small business small changes can have big effects. In these hard economic times for businesses, that could well cause some people to go into bankruptcy, to have to close their business.
Some people in this Assembly may say that that is not the case, but I have read that in America that is exactly what has happened in certain cases. The marketplace, even though forced into taking particular actions, has responded to some degree; but the downturn in commerce in America was noted from 1973. Information I have talks about the cost of quotas in America. It says that, while the principal objection to quotas is their injustice, their costs cannot be ignored; that the most obvious cost is the paperwork involved. It is highly likely that paperwork will be involved under this Bill.
The University of Michigan, for example, had to undertake a $430,000 underutilisation study of women on its staff, despite the absence of any evidence whatever of actual discrimination. A case was mentioned on the ABC this morning. The owner of Doyles restaurant said that he did not get his paperwork in to the State on time. I do not know actually what happened, but he was told that that was
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