Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4288 ..

MR MOORE (11.01): In rising to speak to these amendments, I will also comment on Mr Kaine's lack of understanding of the legislation in his in-principle stage speech, when he talked about finally getting a Discrimination Commissioner of our own. The Discrimination Commissioner has been ours all the way along and has been part of the self-governing Discrimination Act, so I think that was very much a furphy, like most of Mr Kaine's speech.

The notion of trying to take on extra responsibility from the Commonwealth is not what we are talking about at all. What has happened is that we had a shared responsibility with the Commonwealth where ordinary citizens, when they felt they were being discriminated against, could go to one particular organisation and have determined whether or not there was an issue. That organisation could look at both pieces of legislation. That was clearly a very positive thing. The reason we are in the position of doing this, and Mr Humphries has said as much, is that the Commonwealth have pulled the rug from under human rights organisations and commissioners all over Australia. In fact, I gave an example from the Federal Parliament where questions were being asked about the Queensland human rights commissioners and what was going on there.

The reality is that cuts in the Federal Government's budget in this area are having an effect on ordinary people, and at a time when, as Mr Berry puts it, John Howard refuses to take on the outlandish statements of Pauline Hanson. Perhaps he finally did. I lost interest in the debate some time ago.

Mrs Carnell: He did.

MR MOORE: Mrs Carnell says yes. He did finally, after the rest of the community put so much pressure on him that he had no choice, but my guess is that in the initial instance he was delighted to hear that expression of what really are his own underlying philosophies. If ever we have seen a Prime Minister who is on the hard right of politics on these ultraconservative issues, it is Mr Howard, and that is what we are seeing here with this piece of legislation. It does not matter about people who are being discriminated against. What we are seeing is an issue where they simply do not care, and that is what it is troubling Mr Humphries to say. This is a situation where his Federal Liberal colleagues just do not care. The irony is that this is the same group that went to the last election saying that they were for all the people. Yes, for all the people except those who are discriminated against.

Mr Berry: For all of us.

MR MOORE: For all of us, that is right; and what they actually meant was, "For all of us who get elected". They are the ones who are going to be looked after. The amendment does raise a few issues. To define "Commissioner" even more carefully as meaning the person who holds office as commissioner on 30 December 1996 is fine as an interim measure, and I do not have any problem with the amendment.

I did think it was worth making those couple of points about discrimination and whether this is just a matter of taking on our own responsibilities in the ACT. It is not just about that. We had already taken on our own responsibilities. It is much broader than that. It is about ensuring that ordinary people are not discriminated against,

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .