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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1548 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

Ms MacDonald and her positive action out there. Really, if you cared about it, you would take the same positive approach.

Mr Smyth: We do. We want to be positive about football-the road, parking.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, thumping on the table is not going to get the answer that you want; it will merely attract my attention. It is highly disorderly. Resume your seat.

MS MacDONALD: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Can the minister inform the Assembly of whether the agitating being done by Mrs Dunne and Mr Pratt is helping Canberra's efforts to host world cup games?

Mrs Dunne: I think that has already been answered.

MR QUINLAN: Well, if I can just round it out then by saying it is not helping.

Mrs Dunne: Mr Speaker, I have two points of order. I think that the question has already been asked and answered and that it is also asking for expression of opinion.

MR SPEAKER: That remains to be seen.

MR QUINLAN: I do not think at all that this action is helping. Of course, it is not. Whether it is doing any harm is still a moot question. It was a subject of a lot of jocularity at the last game, and maybe a little light-heartedness helps. But I do not think it is helping our cause at all.

Bill of rights

MR STEFANIAK: My question is to the Chief Minister and Attorney-General. Minister, you have established a committee to look into the question of a bill of rights for the ACT, and you have appointed three very prominent persons to that committee. At least two of these persons have publicly written strongly in support of a bill of rights: the chair, Professor Hilary Charlesworth, most recently in an article for the Canberra Times of Monday 29 April; and Dr Larissa Behrendt, who made a learned submission supporting a bill of rights to the New South Wales Legislative Council Standing Committee on Law and Justice.

Without casting any aspersions whatsoever on your committee, members of which are naturally entitled to their views, would it not have been preferable for you to have established a committee including people who are opposed to a bill of rights?

MR STANHOPE: It is important to acknowledge that the first of the terms of reference-which I do not have before me-of the bill of rights committee asks it to determine, in broad terms, through a detailed consultative process whether or not there is support within the ACT community for a bill of rights.

That is the overarching term of reference, and it requires the committee to assess the level of support within the community for a bill of rights. If the committee determines that there is absolutely no support, or fairly limp support, for the notion of a bill of rights,

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