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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 548 ..

Now therefore,

The General Assembly

Proclaims this Declaration of the Rights of the Child to the end that he may have a happy childhood and enjoy for his own good and for the good of society the rights and freedoms herein set forth, and calls upon parents, upon men and women as individuals, and upon voluntary organizations, local authorities and national Governments to recognize these rights and strive for their observance by legislative and other measures progressively taken in accordance with the following principles—

There it is. Let me read that again, “… calls upon … voluntary organizations, local authorities and national Governments …” The call is there from the UN for all of us making law in this place to recognise the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. If we pass clause 9 (2) tonight, we say to the UN that we do not recognise the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, we do not recognise the Geneva Declaration of Rights of the Child of 1924 and we do not recognise the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I put it to you, Mr Speaker, that we as a local authority—we are a territory government—should take note of this. When you go to the start of the Chief Minister’s speech, you will see that there are almost three pages of how all these wonderful international covenants and declarations are the basis of what he wants to do here today, but he doesn’t agree with the bits that don’t suit him. That is where we get inconsistency and that is why this part should be voted down.

It is fine when you get up here and say, “It’s a right to life press release, so it’s okay to pooh-pooh.” We say that we just don’t agree with them; they don’t understand the law. From reading the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and its reference to the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it is clear that we should have appropriate legal protection before as well as after birth. That is the call from the United Nations. That is the call from the body, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, that has auspiced much of this bill. You can see this bill when you read the other covenants. It is picked out from the international law, and that is fine. Bolstering that law is fabulous, until you get to the bit that you don’t like and then you ignore it.

It is important that we remove section 2. If we choose tonight as a legislature to leave in section 2, what it says is that we—the ACT Assembly—are not committed to the Declaration of the Rights of the Child; what it says is that the ACT Assembly and the people we represent are not committed to the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924; and what it says is that we do not believe and we are not committed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I ask members, particularly cross-benchers, to reverse their decision. That is a big call. I know the dedication that most on the cross-benches have to the various causes that they support, and I respect them for it.

But what this legislation does is take us beyond the pale. It says that we in this Assembly will now selectively pick and choose the bits of international covenants or international declarations that we like and suit us. You can’t do that. If you vote against removing this section tonight, every time somebody refers to some sort of international declaration or

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