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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 556 ..

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone, as well as in association with others.

2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

That is very, very similar to what I have here, except paragraph 2 of my amendment states “his or her property, except in accordance with the law” to make it consistent with the rest of this bill. The scrutiny of bills committee report goes on:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has a status at least commensurate with that of the ICCPR and ICESCR—the two international human rights treaties that inspired the recommendations of the Consultative Committee (see above at 2.25). Even if the decision to omit the reference to the ICESCR rights in the Bill is justified, the omission of a recognition of a right to property is harder to justify, given that it is clearly a civil right. The Explanatory Statement (at 4) acknowledges the primacy of the Universal Declaration.

In addition, our legal and constitutional tradition attaches great significance to the right to property. In one case a judge observed that

there is a wealth of authority establishing that there is a common law right recognised in this country protecting citizens from invasions of their private rights to property and possessions. Indeed, the whole history of the law is fundamentally based on the law of trespass and the protection of citizens from interference by unlawful seizure or removal of that citizen’s property by force or without the consent [of] the citizen: (see Police v Carbone (Supreme Court of South Australia, 26 March 1997).

The Committee appreciates that some aspects of a right to property have a higher status in the law of the Territory than a right stated in this Bill. Under paragraph 23(1)(a) of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 “the Assembly has no power to make laws with regard to: (a), the acquisition of property otherwise than on just terms;...

This right is, however, narrower than the broader right to property stated in Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Quite clearly, this is a right and it is an obvious right that should go in any bill of this sort. Why is it not there? Does the government want to ensure that we have absolutely no rights to property? Is this some sort of North Korea type idea, or socialism running rampant? I certainly hope not. But it is an absolutely glaring omission and I think the scrutiny report, and the words there of its learned adviser, are very, very telling. It is somewhat hypocritical of this government to purport to have this wonderful new Human Rights Bill, which is going to get passed tonight by you people, and not have in it one of the most basic fundamental rights in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to own property. Quite clearly, if you even remotely profess to be serious about human rights, this is a right that should go in there.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (10.04): That was a very good speech, Bill. What is a right to property? What does it mean and why is it not in the ICCPR? It is not in the

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