Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 557 ..

ICCPR, Bill, because none of the treaty nations could work out what it meant. If the United Nations—

Mr Stefaniak: You cannot work out any of these rights, Jon, so why are we having this silly bill?

MR STANHOPE: Yes, we can, Bill; that is the point. The ones that are included in the ICCPR were understood, have been legislated on and interpretation has been provided. There was no agreement in the negotiations at the establishment and development of the convention on what was meant. I have to say to the shadow attorney that it really is an issue, I think, for scrutiny of bills in relation to those aspects of the debate and some of the points that were made about the very obvious gaps. I did point this out to you in the government’s response to the scrutiny of bills committee report about the very glaring gaps in argument and logic provided in the dissertation that you just read from. You read from the scrutiny of bills committee report. For the sake of balance you might have informed or advised members of the Assembly of the government’s response to the claims made in the scrutiny of bills committee report; I will provide that information for members of the Assembly:

The Committee also argues for property rights to be included in the Bill. As the Committee is aware, the Bill gives effect to the rights enshrined in the ICCPR and are therefore binding under international treaty law. The prohibition on arbitrary or unlawful interference with the privacy and home provides protection against unreasonable or unlawful house searches. By contrast, the right to own property and not be arbitrarily deprived of property was considered during the draft of the ICCPR and abandoned because of the wide divergence of opinion on the nature and limits of the right. An important consideration was the definition of property.

There was no agreement on the definition of property—

And in the European system the concept of property has been interpreted to include not just physical property but also rights and interests such as claims to income support and compensation.

Is that what the opposition proposes in relation to this amendment? Does the opposition propose to include in the Human Rights Bill rights to income support and compensation? Is that what it means? The opposition cannot say what it means by a right to property. If it cannot say what it means, it cannot include it. The inclusion of property rights in the bill therefore raises a number of very significant, very important and very complex definitional issues. The inclusion of property rights at this stage will not be supported by the government because of the difficulty surrounding the intent, the meaning and the definition, and the fact that at this time it was quite deliberately excluded by the drafters of the ICCPR from the ICCPR because no agreement could be reached on what it means.

It is important that we note that and understand it so that we know the context of the debate we are having here. Once again, however, this is another one of those issues that might profitably be pursued in the future, that would profit from some further analysis. Perhaps we can come to an agreement and some finer understanding of what it is that we are talking about. But at this stage there is a range of protections in relation to the protection of our property—essentially, at least, our homes—and, of course, they are encapsulated.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .