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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 524 ..

tonight because what is happening here is not a protection of human rights; it is the start of the downgrading of human rights in the ACT. (Further extension of time granted.)

In his tabling speech, the Chief Minister makes much of all the international declarations and codes that Australia has signed up to. He talks about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Let us look at clause 9 of the bill, which is about the right to life. Clause 9 (1) reads:

Everyone has the right to life. In particular, no-one may be arbitrarily deprived of life.

Clause 9 (2) reads:

This section applies to a person from the time of birth.

That single line abandons the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and absolutely abandons the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognises children’s rights. The premise that the Attorney-General brings to this place is that, because we have been involved in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and we have been involved in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we should have a bill of rights. He should read the covenant and the declaration

The ACT Right to Life Association put out a press release about this bill this morning. I want to quote a little bit from it. The press release reads:

Human rights will be taken away from our smallest citizens if the ACT Government’s Human Rights Bill 2003 is passed, president of the ACT Right to Life Association, Mary Joseph, said today.

The ACT’s proposed Bill of Rights was introduced into the ACT Legislative Assembly in November last year as the Human Rights Bill 2003 by the Stanhope government.

“The Government claims the Bill is based on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights…but it violates Article 6 of the Covenant which protects the right to life without any qualification or limitation whatsoever. This Bill—

the Chief Minister’s bill—

states that the right to life ‘shall apply to a person from the point of birth’”—

Welcome, Solomon, to the ACT Assembly—

“The ‘from the point of birth’ condition is an exclusionary clause that is found nowhere in the ICCPR or in international human rights law.

Well done, Attorney-General; we are going to go it on our own with this one. The press release goes on to say:

It is an express violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Australia has signed and ratified—

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