Page 5225 - Week 16 - Thursday, 28 November 1991
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MR MOORE (12.18): I appreciate the issue Mr Duby raised and I am very gratified to hear a sensible and rational response. I think it is very important to take up one issue Mr Stevenson raised by referring to the proposed paragraph 63B(2)(c) amendment Mr Collaery has moved. It states:
Nothing in this section renders unlawful -
... ... ...
(c) a public act, done reasonably and in good faith, for academic, artistic, scientific or research purposes or for other purposes in the public interest, including discussion or debate about and expositions of any act or matter.
What Mr Collaery's amendment has done is to protect free speech. It is very important to note that some of the arguments put by Mr Stevenson indicated that this amendment would in some way infringe his right to say or read what he wants to. When we are talking about academic or research purposes or anything like that, it is quite clear to me that that would not be the case at all.
One of the greatest ironies of this Assembly is that Mr Stevenson should stand up in this place and say that he would not allow anybody at all to infringe his right to read or see or listen to whatever he likes. He has spent longer than two years in this house and in this community telling everybody else that he is going to tell them what they can watch and what they cannot watch. It is one of the great ironies, and it is an act of great hypocrisy that he should do that.
What we have here is a debate about social control rather than about the issues that are at hand. The issue at hand and the issue brought on by this amendment is to extend the human rights of people to give them the right to not be harassed because of the colour of their skin or because of their race, whatever that race is. Mr Stevenson, in quoting from Your Rights, makes a quite big issue - - -
Mr Stevenson: I did not quote from Your Rights.
MR MOORE: Mr Stevenson interjects that he did not quote from Your Rights.
Mr Stevenson: It was a submission that I quoted from.
MR MOORE: A submission from the paper that he tabled. I may be incorrect about it being Your Rights; but it certainly, on my quick reading of it, appears to be. I accept that I may be mistaken there because I have not gone through it thoroughly enough. In quoting from this paper and taking
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