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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4282 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

That having been said, and I think that is fundamental, Mr Humphries has taken the opportunity at least to try to get some improvements in the office into the legislation. The first of those, which Mr Whitecross mentioned, is allowing the commissioner to be involved in the conciliation process. I am pleased to say that I also support that. Whatever we can do to find conciliation is an important step forward. That process having been established, the establishment of the tribunal is dealt with in the Bill.

Another positive attribute of this Bill is the question of having issues dealt with within 60 days of a complaint being lodged. That sort of discipline is becoming more and more important in dealing with such issues. I think it is a great shame that we are not able to provide a coordinated approach with the Commonwealth, not just from the financial perspective, but also for the ability of people who feel they have been discriminated against to go to one commissioner and say, "I have been discriminated against". An ordinary person does not care whether it is under Federal legislation or ACT legislation. All they know is that they feel they have been wronged. I think we are still going to have an issue to deal with here in terms of flick passing from one jurisdiction to another. It was something we got around in this very important social justice issue, and now it opens again. Whilst I support this piece of legislation as a method of dealing with something that has been inflicted upon us, I think Mr Humphries should make very clear why we have been forced into this position, and then we should vote. Nevertheless, the legislation does deserve support.

MS TUCKER (10.41): Mr Speaker, the Greens will be supporting this Bill. We appreciate that there was little the Government could do because of the difficulty in coming up with a cooperative arrangement with the Commonwealth. I would like to congratulate the Government for ensuring that we do have our own Human Rights Office in the ACT. Once again, we see the Commonwealth turning their backs on social justice issues in the community.

The model that has been proposed is to have a magistrate heading the Discrimination Tribunal. We can see that this is the most efficient solution. Different States do have different models, as Mr Humphries has pointed out. Most, if not all, do separate the investigation and conciliation functions. What is different for the ACT is that, because we are a relatively small jurisdiction, we do not have the luxury of appointing a whole panel to sit on a tribunal, as many other States do. Therefore, the Government has chosen to have a magistrate as the president. The Greens were of the view that other models could be explored, taking into account, of course, the limitations of being a small jurisdiction. Potentially, these models could have been less formal.

It is clear that it is the intention that only a small number of cases will go to a hearing, as most will be conciliated by the commissioner. I also note that there is a new requirement that, where conciliation is successful, the agreed outcome of the conciliation should be reduced to writing, enabling the commissioner to confirm with the parties the details of the conciliated outcome. As this is the case, we think it is appropriate to monitor the model that is being put forward and, if there is some alternative to having a magistrate as president, this could be explored at a later date if it proves that it is not the most effective model for meeting the objectives of the Act. I have also spoken to senior bureaucrats about the amendments that have been proposed, and we will be supporting those.

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