Page 376 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
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MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Humphries, may I simply point out that, were a point of order to be taken on that issue, I would deal with it.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, Madam Speaker, and I am sure that you would deal with it very fairly. I make the point, Madam Speaker, that there is a considerable stench of hypocrisy in this chamber on this question.
Last year, when the Attorney introduced legislation to deal with age discrimination, he said that that particular amendment dealt with an important issue which completed the Government's discrimination program. Obviously Mr Moore has other ideas. He believes that the issue should be extended one step further. In this amendment before us today, we have an extension which clearly covers circumstances - I have not personally been aware of them in great detail, but certainly Mr Moore has had some contact with them - in which discrimination is practised against certain people on the basis of their occupation or calling.
I understand that particularly members of the sex industry in the ACT have had difficulty in obtaining access to insurance, and it may be that the Bill provides them with a valuable means of overcoming that discrimination. The amendments to the Bill that Mr Connolly has foreshadowed will mean that discrimination is still possible where it can be shown to be relevant to a consideration of the person exercising the discrimination. I think that the position Mr Moore puts forward will deal with the question of insurance for sex workers, but I cannot be certain.
There is one thing about the Bill, though, which I think deserves to be commented on, Madam Speaker. I refer to the comments that I made in the debate last week on the Discrimination (Amendment) Bill (No. 3) - namely, that there are two different models of how to legislate against discrimination. One can take, as the existing Discrimination Act does, several heads of discrimination and say, "It is illegal to discriminate on these bases". Then, if one wishes nonetheless to discriminate, one has to find a particular exemption referred to somewhere in the legislation. In other words, there is a broad ban on discrimination, and the only exceptions are those specifically listed in the legislation itself. The alternative course of action is to say that discrimination is illegal, unless it is inherently reasonable in the circumstances, and then to give examples of circumstances in which that discrimination would be legal.
The effect of Mr Connolly's foreshadowed amendments is to move something from the first category of legislative enactment to the second category. Rather than there being a broad power with certain limited exemptions, it is now more or less a case of saying that it is illegal to discriminate unless it happens to be reasonable. Madam Speaker, in some ways, this is the better way to go. In many ways, I would be happier if the Discrimination Act itself actually used this procedure in many other cases of discrimination - in fact, all other cases of discrimination. That is, it is illegal to discriminate unless the circumstances - not specified - of the particular case actually warrant discrimination.
With this legislation, as has been the case with all other amendments to the Discrimination Act that we have dealt with, obviously there are going to be unforeseen consequences. No doubt it will be difficult in some circumstances to explain to people how this legislation might impact on them. For example, when Mrs Jones, a woman living somewhere in Canberra, has an application for
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