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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 527 ..

What happened when the head of the chamber of commerce had the temerity to represent his members by criticising the economic white paper? He was branded an ideological and political enemy of the government. God bless you for standing up to Jon Stanhope and being an ideological and political enemy of the government. So much for this talk of inclusion, protecting rights and saying to Chris Peters, “I affirm your right to criticise me because you have a right to free speech. In fact, Chris, if you go to the rights section of the act, section 16, you have freedom of expression.” Everyone has a right to hold opinions without interference as long as they do not contradict those of Jon Stanhope, because if you contradict those of Jon Stanhope you are an ideological and political enemy of the government.

The Australia Day in the National Capital Committee seemed to earn the wrath of our Chief Minister as well. What happened to them? He cut their funding—zip, nil, nix, nada, zero dollars. He would rather spend it on Welcome Back Cotter, a true Aussie barbecue, but he did not mention that it just happened to be on Australia Day, that it happened to be another picnic in a park that happened to have entertainment, that happened to come the day after the federal government had its little shindig up at Federation Mall. But don’t dare cross the Chief Minister because you have section 16, you have freedom of expression!

What about Volunteering ACT, the other group that stood up to the Chief Minister? Their funding was cut to zero. We spent all last year praising volunteers, but we are not going to give them any money. I think it is the height of arrogant posturing from the Chief Minister to say that this bill is to protect the rights of individuals. What will happen to those that dare to oppose Jon Stanhope?

Mr Speaker, I go back to where I started, that is, with the words of Bishop Browning when he talked about protecting individual human beings. The sad thing about what this bill has done in terms of portraying that we were going to end up with a system that so much better protected people is that that is not true. I often think of the words of John Donne, the English metaphysical poet, when he said:

No man is an island, entire of himself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

I think the bell tolls for the ACT tonight. I think that it tolls for the city of Canberra and I think that ultimately it tolls for all of Australia, because what we are doing today is we are eroding the rights of the individual and what we are doing today is we are eroding the separation of powers that leave our judiciary independent of our political wing. The bell tolls for the independence of the Assembly, because we have another player who can have a finger in the pie.

The bill erodes the ability of the judiciary to make decisions, because the Attorney-General and the Human Rights Commissioner can enter the court and have their say, and it erodes the confidence that people have in those that they have elected to make decisions on their behalf because we are now subject to another body and its interpretation of the laws that we made. The bell tolls for all of us because this bill does not do what it purports to do.

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