Page 5170 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 27 November 1991
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MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (9.53): Members would recall that earlier on, in the list of grounds of discrimination, there was originally an open-ended power there to prescribe an additional ground of discrimination. The Scrutiny of Bills Committee quite properly said that that was too open-ended and should be removed. The Government moved an amendment to take that off.
This is, again, a somewhat open-ended provision, but of less severity. Mr Collaery, in his remarks, indicated the difficulty of this area, and the difficulty of applying the concept of non-discrimination to the many and varied aspects of organised sporting activities. This is, in effect, an open-ended provision that will allow the Government to fix up problems as they may arise.
I note that the Scrutiny of Bills Committee did not have any problems with that. Any prescription of a sporting activity is, of course, disallowable. So, it is allowing a bit of discretion to the Executive to fix up problems as they may arise unthought of, because of some of the problems in liaising with the vast area of organised sporting activity. To some extent, I guess, we are asking you to take this on trust; but it is disallowable. It allows us to fix up problems as and when they arise. Trust us.
MR DUBY (9.54): I am sure I speak for other members of the Assembly, Mr Speaker, when I say that in this case I am prepared to trust the Minister for Sport, who I know will be zealous in ensuring that sex discrimination does not appear in any sporting activities within the Territory. It did seem to me that the provision was doing just what the Attorney has specified; namely, that it was giving the Government a blank cheque to say that.
When I raised the point originally I heard voices - I think they were from the public gallery - suggesting that the Government could, for example, use this to remove jelly wrestling, or something equally worthy, from the sporting activities of Canberrans, and I would hate to think that it was applied to circumstances such as that. Clause 40 does seem to paint a very broad canvas. To be honest, for the life of me, I cannot think of an additional sporting activity which would fall within the purview of the meaning of the Bill. Nevertheless, I will take the Government's word on this and allow them that leeway.
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 41 to 44 taken together, and agreed to.
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