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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 454 ..

The Aarhus convention, to which Australia is unfortunately not a party, sets out clear statements about access to information on the environment. I looked at bringing at least the language of this treaty into the current bill but have been persuaded that at this stage there are better ways to comprehensively improve legal obligations, or at least remind us to protect the environment.

It would be very useful for the Australian government to sign up and then we would be more involved in the ongoing development of the interpretation of the treaty in case law. I’m not convinced that our Freedom of Information Act and our Environment Protection Act give us the full bottle on the rights in Aarhus. This should be part of the reviews in the future. The environment commissioner could be given a specific role in identifying problems with environment-related human rights. This would be useful even under this version, but as we are in the midst of a review of the role of the office of Commissioner for the Environment it seems better to wait. I believe the Human Rights Act is an important step not only for the ACT but for Australia, despite the fact that it is limited at this point to civil and political rights. My amendment, which ensures a review in 12 months to look at bringing in economic, cultural, and social rights, hopefully will have support and lead to the Act being broadened. It is disappointing that the government lost courage on this, and it is hard to understand given that this model is so timid, and given that damages have been removed also.

This bill creates a situation where there will be a dialogue on questions of rights, particularly between branches of government and the community. It requires government to explain itself. I note with interest that some opponents of this bill see it as somehow promoting an individual rights argument versus a community-broad collective rights dialogue and that it fails to acknowledge the need for responsibility to be taken by people. On the contrary, this bill is very much about responsibilities. To quote from the human rights manual which was a production of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 1998 and signed by Mr Downer:

Human Rights and fundamental freedoms are the birthright of all human beings, their protection and promotion is the first responsibility of governments.

In the same section of this manual the point is made:

The World Conference on Human Rights reaffirms that everyone without distinction of any kind is entitled to the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution, as well as the right to return to one’s own country.

In this respect it stresses the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees, its 1967 protocol and regional instruments. I refer to this because I want to illustrate how I see the notion of responsibility as central. Not only is this a responsibility of government; it is a responsibility of the community to ensure agreed-upon rights are accorded to members of society. While Mr Downer signed this document, it is obviously arguable whether his government has respected its content and its policy on refugees. It is clear that our current legal system does not always protect people from human rights violations. The point was made very clearly to me on several occasions while talking to children who have spent most of their lives behind razor wire in Australia. The point was also made very clearly in correspondence with Mr Downer about diminished rights to protest

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