Page 5286 - Week 16 - Thursday, 28 November 1991
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There are all sorts of popular euphemisms. For example, with respect to the grounds for discrimination, rather than refer to "sex" we could refer to "gender"; but we have not. We have referred to sex because that is the more common way in which people think about this form of discrimination. We should use user-friendly, common, everyday, lay language which people in the community use. The term they would undoubtedly use is "discrimination". I think, therefore, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we should stick with that term.
MR COLLAERY (5.08): I should give account because I agreed to the title "Discrimination" in the developmental stages of the Bill, and the record should show why. Firstly, if you look at the long title of the Bill, you will see that it uses the word "discrimination". It says, "An Act to render certain kinds of discrimination unlawful and to provide for related matters". Someone in this Assembly - I think it was Mr Duby - gave a far more prosaic but more accurate argument as to why we should stick to "Discrimination". He thinks that someone discriminated against who did not have a total grasp of the English language would be more likely to look in the phone book under "Discrimination". That is an argument that commends itself to me.
On a more organised front - as Mr Connolly knows - there is no heading "Human Rights" or "Equal Opportunity" in the Legal Monthly Digest. Many of the documents that those in the informed circuit read have the heading "Discrimination". The Australian Legal Monthly Digest puts these matters under the heading "Discrimination". I am not saying that we are sticking to that term simply because it is in the lexicon of the law. In the consultation period there was some comment about the name. The ministerial advisory council - and Ms Follett accurately reflected their views in her remarks a moment ago - certainly said that the name did not reflect the purpose. They said that it should be "Anti-Discrimination" or "Equal Opportunity".
Of course, in New South Wales the term is "Anti-Discrimination"; in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia it is "Equal Opportunity". The Professional Officers Association thought that the name should be "Anti-Discrimination", as it is in New South Wales, and that the current title, with the large number of exemptions in the Bill, suggested that the purpose of the Bill was to legitimise discrimination. That was one argument.
The Women's Electoral Lobby, the Advisory Council on Multicultural Affairs and the South Australian equal opportunity office thought that neither the short title - "Discrimination" - nor the long title reflected promotion of equal opportunity to all citizens as part of the objects of the Bill. They thought that the present title was negative, not positive, and that it did not raise community awareness of the issue.
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