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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (25 November) . . Page.. 4575 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

It was claimed for instance that police recruits practise their craft by targeting vulnerable groups, as seen in the recent wave of arrests of young Indigenous people. Other examples of overzealous policing were when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are assembling-school activities, sporting events, and even funerals have seen police attending in numbers ... Just one phone call from a member of the public advising that a number of Aborigines are assembling is enough for police attendance ...

I have been around this Assembly for quite some time. I have briefly been police minister, I have been Attorney-General and education minister, I have had many, many dealings, especially through education, with members of the indigenous community and I can't for the life of me think of any instances in the ACT, in recent years that would bear out that statement. Yet it is included in here as a statement and no-one is querying it, but I would certainly query it. I think our police strive to have excellent relationships with all sorts of people in our community, including indigenous people, and indeed some of the things they have done have been a real model for other jurisdictions. So for a bland statement like that to go in without anyone doubting that it is true is basically quite wrong, because I defy anyone to give me any evidence of something like that.

Some of the other worrying features concerned the rights of various people. An interesting point was made that because we don't have a bill of rights, children cannot argue a breach of rights if their eviction is a result of their parents' failure to pay rent. It is unfortunate that people are evicted for failing to pay rent but what is that supposed to mean-because we have to look after the rights of the child, no-one can be evicted? That means other people lose their rights to receive rent, to receive an income. As a result, many self-funded retirees, who might have one investment property and a very small income, can't get the income.

Some stark things in this report are somewhat concerning and go to the fundamental question that people like Bob Carr have said on many occasions-if you try to give one group rights, you invariably take away rights from some other group. He points that out as being one very, very good reason why Australia does not need to go down the path of a bill of rights. I think that is a very, very important point to make. The committee also wanted to go down the path of economic rights and made a number of recommendations to the government.

I now come to the government's report, and there are some worrying aspects to it. It doesn't go as far as the committee actually wants, but it does say it is going to introduce a bill of rights that includes the ICCPR rights; that requires courts and tribunals to interpret laws to be compatible with the Human Rights Act as far as possible; that requires pre-enactment scrutiny of the legislation, including a statement from the Attorney-General about whether legislation is compatible with the Human Rights Act, and establishes a human rights commission to review existing legislation and conduct education programs relating to human rights.

It goes on to say that through the interpretative provision, rights will be drawn into all areas of ACT law. For example, all statutory directions will be interpreted as having to be exercised consistently with the rights contained in the Human Rights Act. Legislation that did not clearly intend actions to be of a particular nature, regardless of human rights considerations, would be interpreted as requiring actions authorised by it to be consistent

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