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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (1 March) . . Page.. 423 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

to avoid answering my questions on the ACT Government's submission to the Senate inquiry. Of course, this argument is just a smokescreen argument to avoid facing up to the reality of the issues. Let us look at the two cases that politicians like to mention. The first concerns supervised injecting places. The Greens and the Government and Labor have challenged the importance and status of the view of the International Narcotics Control Board, the body which is charged with administering the conventions and protocols on narcotics. There are two main differences here. Firstly, whether it is in breach of the convention at all is questionable. There is solid legal advice that a supervised injecting place of a certain kind will not be in breach of the convention.

Secondly, the International Narcotics Control Board does not have a role under the treaty to adjudicate or interpret, only to recommend. So when they make their statements it is their opinion and unenforceable at international and national law. As was reported today in the Canberra Times, Professor Pennington said the agency described itself as a quasi-judicial body making judgments on anything to do with illicit drugs. But there are no such words in the international treaties that govern the board. This is a body which is operating right outside its authority under the treaties, according to Professor Pennington. I am assuming that the Government would not presume to suggest that this situation is the same as with mandatory minimum sentencing laws and the conventions that I have outlined, considering the legal opinion in this country and internationally which I have referred to.

The other issue that is brought up in this smokescreen argument of consistencies is euthanasia. That was not a treaty issue at all. There was no breaking of promises to uphold principles on behalf of the ACT people. The Federal Government was able to override the Northern Territory legislation in that case simply because it is a territory. Much as some members here might want to paint it as a simple black-and-white issue of consistency of response to all matters of overriding state and territory laws, I am sorry but it is just not that simple and you will not get away with it. People in the community know it is about all these other important factors I am raising.

As elected representatives we all have a responsibility to look at the deeper issues and make a considered and principled decision. I do not claim that it is always easy to be clear on what the principled position is, neither do I claim to have always reached it, but I understand that my first responsibility is always to attempt to find such a position and to explain it in this place. I would argue the need to be consistent too, but to be consistent in standing up for justice, for fairness and for human rights.

The fifth point of my motion is that mandatory sentencing laws are manifestly unjust and, I would add, morally reprehensible. Such laws take away discretion from a judge or magistrate so that he or she has to imprison children and adults for pathetically small property crimes. How can we call it justice when bewildered people are held hundreds of kilometres away from family, friends and country for such crimes as stealing a can of cordial, when every single major investigation of indigenous communities and culture and every attempt to reconcile with indigenous people have pointed not in the direction of brutal punishment and revenge but in the direction of positive social support and empowerment of the people?

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