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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 512 ..

should be built over years, not over a matter of months, possibly much longer than the Chief Minister anticipated. If the Chief Minister were true to himself, he would admit that there are some things in here. Perhaps he is hoping that the legislation will be introduced, off we will go and—“Oops, there’s a mistake. Oh, dear, we’ve got a problem”—have policy on the run, fixing problems on the run. That would not be a very good outcome for the people the Chief Minister is purporting to help. I think that that is a pretty cheap way of getting people on board.

As I have said, I understand that the six public meetings held in Canberra to discuss the bill of rights attracted only 120 residents, the largest group being 40 and the smallest only four. This is a shambles. The Department of Justice and Community Safety, in its March quarterly performance report, revealed that reports to the Human Rights Office were down by over 10 per cent. That came out via Mr Stefaniak on 12 May 2003.

A bill of rights has already been rejected by all the other Australian states and territories, with Bob Carr and Peter Beattie being particularly outspoken on the issue. Indeed, Mr Carr pointed out that many of the most brutal and oppressive dictatorships the world history—I know that it has been said in this place, but let’s keep reminding ourselves—have had superb constitutions guaranteeing all manner of human rights. Human rights are best protected by the strength of the values in the community and no set of words in and of themselves is capable of guaranteeing that protection.

It is interesting to note as well how the public feel. They have really been bamboozled by this bill. It is a very complex bill, extremely complex for the layperson. Mr Stanhope has alluded to that himself. He said that there are many issues and many facets to this bill. How we in this place think is not how the general public outside of this place think. Just when we are sick of hearing something, they are only just getting the idea. My concern is that the general public have not yet got the idea.

Perhaps the Chief Minister can help me on this one; I am sure that he will: the ACT Department of Justice and Community Safety already has under its control a Human Rights Office. I am not clear on whether that office has been established, Chief Minister. I noticed in the financial performance statement for the Human Rights Office in the annual report for 2002-03 that the office policed the Discrimination Act 1991 at a cost of $566,000 in that financial year. I have not heard too much about what is going to happen to that office and how it is going to fold into that. It would be good if the Chief Minister could talk to me about that.

The currently proposed Human Rights Act is significantly different from the draft bill. How many people know that, other than those of us in here? We are all very familiar with it and we keep hearing about it, but how many others know that it is significantly different from the draft bill prescribed in the original document? There is a couple of fundamental differences. There are no mechanisms for the Supreme Court to issue a declaration of incompatibility on the basis of a piece of legislation being inconsistent with the Human Rights Act. I understand that that falls within the purview of the Chief Minister as the Attorney-General. There are issues around reporting on such and the report has to be within six days. It just seems that it would be an administrative nightmare for the Attorney-General personally and for his department.

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