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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 443 ..

MR STEFANIAK (11.04): Mr Deputy Speaker, the question of a human rights bill, or a bill of rights, has cropped up from time to time in Australia. There have been a number of attempts to enact a bill of rights at federal, state and territory level. To date no government has done so. I think in the days of the Follett government there was a bill which lay on the table and lapsed at the end of the second Assembly.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the fact that no other Australian jurisdiction has enacted a bill of rights, plus the fact that there is certainly no groundswell in our community calling for such a bill, should cause the Chief Minister to pause and ask himself why is he going down this very dangerous path of social engineering?

During the consultation phase it was indicative of the lack of real interest in this bill that at the six public meetings only 120 people actually turned up—an average of about 20 a meeting, ranging from four at the first meeting in Tuggeranong to about, I think, 45 at another meeting. Despite the fact that a deliberative poll was held and there were very good attempts to try to get the public interested, I think those figures of the attendance at public meetings, which were spread out, are telling.

This is a pet project of the Chief Minister and this government. There is no groundswell of public opinion for it, and for very good reason. It is interesting to note what has been said by a lot of people who went to these meetings and participated in debates. Both Mr Stanhope and I took part in a debate in this Assembly that was attended by school students. We both spoke about a bill of rights and then the students looked at the merits. One of the teachers involved rang me afterwards and said that the majority of students opposed a bill of rights. She said that they had developed a very good understanding of the issues and had found the debate very interesting. I was interested to hear that.

A number of people in our community have also made comments. I will read out one letter which quite simply sets out why people do not think there should be a bill of rights for the ACT. The letter is from J and A Coleman, and I think it would have been faxed to most members. The letter, which is addressed to Mr Stanhope, states:

It does nothing to defend the rights of ordinary Australians/Canberrans and places the jurisdiction of these matters out of the hands of a “democratically-elected” government and into the hands of otherwise unaccountable courts.

They went on to say:

Incidentally, your continued push for this legislation, despite strong community (even media) objection, is undemocratic in any case. It was not part of your electoral mandate. Please cease and desist, and get on with running our city.

Mr Stanhope perhaps had it in his legal policy, but I do not think many people knew that, hence the comment. They go on to say:

Why do we still have “burn-outs” every night? Why haven’t I seen a police car in our neighbourhood for months? Why can they never send a car out when we call them? Why is it that the only time we ever see police is when they are inside a speed-camera van or a radar trap? Why are there drug deals going on in broad daylight behind my building in Civic?

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