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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1713 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

(2) are inconsistent with recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which the Commonwealth and all States and Territories have agreed to implement;

(3) are inconsistent with the goal of reconciliation with indigenous people, which the Commonwealth and all States and Territories have agreed to;

(4) may be in breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and

(5) are manifestly unjust because they take away the possibility of individual circumstances being taken into account by magistrates and judges and alternative socially constructive rehabilitation options being pursued.

I actually called on the Assembly to condemn and dissociate itself from the ACT government's submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee inquiry into mandatory sentencing laws, because of the submissions they were to acknowledge that these laws are racially discriminatory in effect; are inconsistent with recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which the Commonwealth and states and territories have agreed to implement; are inconsistent with the goal of reconciliation with indigenous people which the Commonwealth and all states and territories have agreed to; may be in breach of the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and are manifestly unjust because they take away the possibility of individual circumstances being taken into account by magistrates and judges and alternative socially constructive rehabilitation options being pursued.

That motion was supported by a majority of members of the ACT Assembly, and I understand the Secretariat of the Assembly informed the Senate of the motion. I personally also sent a copy of the motion to Senator McKiernan.

What we are seeing today in this motion from Mr Stanhope is a restatement of concern from this Assembly about the ACT government's position on this issue. Again tonight we have heard the states rights argument. We have heard about great commitment to reconciliation. I guess that is where it sticks in the throat of anyone who is genuinely committed to these issues. You cannot speak about reconciliation and separate yourself from issues such as mandatory sentencing or the statements on the stolen generation.

I know from the indigenous people I have spoken to that when they have heard the way that people have attempted to separate these issues they have been absolutely appalled. The churches of Australia have come out on the issue of mandatory sentencing. I raised this in the last debate. There is an issue here for men who claim to be men of faith in this place. When we debated abortion, I heard those men of faith deal with issues as moral issues. Mandatory sentencing is a moral issue. The churches of this country have said it, and these people still stand there and tell us it is a states rights issue. I am not going to go into all the detail of my arguments on this. I have done that fully in this place once already. If anyone is interested in seeing a fuller position, they can look at the previous debate.

The issue of the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee inquiry into the stolen generation is equally implicit in any genuine commitment to reconciliation. The hurt that has been done to indigenous people over the last month as a result of thoughtless statements from the federal government cannot be expressed in words. I have

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