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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 558 ..

Another issue that would obviously be raised in the context of this right to property is whether or not the opposition intends that it include leasehold land. What is it that you mean? Do you propose to impose some definition over and above that that applies to the system of land registration that we have here in the ACT? Are you suggesting for any minute that the land registration system that applies to the leasehold system in the ACT be rendered inconsistent by your amendment? Is that what you mean? Is that your intention? What do you mean? You do not know what you mean. You do not provide us with a definition of property. We cannot possibly proceed with this amendment.

MS DUNDAS (10.09): I find it quite interesting that Mr Stefaniak can stand up and so eloquently argue for the right to safety and security and the right to own property, but is opposed to including in this legislation the right to health, the right to education, the right to work and the right to self-determination. He is picking and choosing rights at whim to include in this piece of legislation.

I would be quite happy to debate more fully the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights for inclusion into this legislation and I would welcome it if Mr Stefaniak had done the work and tabled as amendments all the rights that surround the right to own property. But he has not done that, so I believe that that will be a debate that we will have at a later stage when we debate the right to self-determination, the right to work and other economic, social and cultural rights.

It does appear that the opposition is just picking some rights to have a debate around, without really looking at them in the fuller context. As has been said again and again in this debate, all rights are interrelated and interconnected and we need to be discussing them in that fuller picture as opposed to just picking and choosing.

MS TUCKER (10.10): This is an interesting amendment. The right to own property is a right, as other members have said, expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at article 17, and article 17 is not translated into the two later instruments of human rights, mainly, I understand, because there was not consensus and there were objections to such explicit protection of private property.

I understand that Justice Brennan in the Mabo No 1 case used the right to property to argue that native title existed. The right to own property is also implied in the Australian Constitution. Section 51(xxxi) gives the Commonwealth parliament the power to legislate with respect to the acquisition of property on just terms from any state or person for any purpose in respect of which the parliament has power to make laws.

However, Mr Stefaniak’s amendment is not a direct copy of article 17. Paragraph 2 of article 17 reads:

No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Paragraph 2 of Mr Stefaniak’s proposed right states: “No-one may be deprived of his or her property, except in accordance with law,” and this does not have the same meaning as “arbitrarily”. The term “arbitrarily” features in several of the rights expressed in this bill. “Arbitrarily” means something like not in accordance with a law that itself accords with human rights or in the absence of such law not in accordance with human rights. It

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