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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 555 ..

Question put:

That the amendment (Mr Stefaniak’s) be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the negative.

Amendment negatived.

Proposed new clause 12B.

MR STEFANIAK (9.59): I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name on the yellow paper, which inserts a new clause 12B. [see schedule 3 at page 604]. This inserts a most basic right, which is strangely omitted from this bill, and that is the right to own property. The source of this right is the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights—not principles but an actual declaration of human rights. My amendment states:

(1) Everyone has the right to own property, either alone or with others.

(2) No-one may be deprived of his or her property, except in accordance with law.

It is interesting that the scrutiny of bills committee has commented on this issue. On page 13 going over to page 14 of its report it deals with the selection of the rights for recognition. It notes that at clause 7 of this bill it says that the act is not exhaustive of the rights and in the explanatory memorandum it states that the purpose of this clause is to ensure the act is not misused for the purpose of limiting a right a person may have on the basis that the right is not recognised in the bill or is recognised to a lesser extent. Towards the bottom of page 13 of the report it states:

The Bill proceeds on there being a sensible division between two kinds of rights. A more particular concern for some will be that recommendations in the Consultative Committee report for recognition of a right to self-determination, and rights of minorities, may fail to accord sufficient rights recognition for the indigenous community.

From another and quite different perspective, a matter of concern is the omission of any recognition of the civil right of protection of property. This right is recognised in Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the foundational document of the international human rights framework):

Article 17

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