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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (25 November) . . Page.. 4581 ..
MS DUNDAS (continuing):
decision is this claim that ICSER rights are somehow not human rights because they can be affected by the expenditures of government. In other words, the government believes that some human rights might be too expensive to protect. The message that this sends is that the government believes that protecting the territory's revenues is more important than protecting human rights. This could be summarised by saying that money is more important than people.
I note that the consultative committee believes that the ACT Human Rights Act would be unbalanced if it were to protect civil and political rights alone. The differential treatment of human rights entrenches the controversial decision by the United Kingdom to separate human rights into two categories. A government that is committed to the principle that human rights are universal, interdependent, interrelated, indivisible would not then choose to treat some as more important than others.
I commend the government for the extensive work it has done in protecting human rights in the ACT, and the work of the consultative committee. But I am gravely concerned that at the eleventh hour it has decided to junk the essential recognition of some human rights in the ACT for political convenience. True recognition of human rights does not place them as subordinate to government finances, or split them into those that are compulsory and those that are optional. I think the government needs to reconsider the inclusion of social, economic, and cultural rights as part of the Human Rights Act. If it does not we may face the prospect of a watered down and half-complete piece of legislation that sends a message to the people that some human rights are optional extras that depend not on those universal principles of freedom and fairness that we hold dear, but on the benevolence of the government of the day.
MS TUCKER (12.11): The ACT Greens are very encouraged to see that the government has followed through with the Human Rights Act from the work of the ACT Bill of Rights Consultative Committee. I commend the work of that committee on the whole, although I do have some concerns. I certainly have some concerns about how the government has chosen to progress the work from that committee's report because the committee's report Towards an ACT Human Rights Act was very clear. It regarded the social, cultural and economic rights as fundamental and to be included in any Human Rights Act.
The other thing that I am disappointed about is the lack of reference in the committee's report to environment and to the Human Rights Act. I will just quote from the Environmental Defender's Office a couple of paragraphs that make the point pretty clearly:
As you would be aware the Committee handed its report to the Chief Minister in May this year. The EDO is disappointed that the Committee did not include any reference to the environment in its report or make provision for the environment in the draft Bill included in its report.
The EDO is particularly disappointed in this outcome of the Committee's inquiry and report given the growing recognition in multilateral and regional international law and policy that human rights and responsibilities, and environmental protection, are interdependent, and that the right to clean air, clean water, and a healthy living environment is a basic human right necessary for people to live lives of dignity and value.
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