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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 560 ..

Clause 16 (2), on freedom of expression, is very interesting. It says:

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right includes the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of borders, whether orally, in writing or in print, by way of art, or in another way chosen by him or her.

Does that mean that we do not have a problem with graffiti any more? Can they tag what they like, up and down London Circuit? What about pornography? The words are: “…whether orally, in writing or in print, by way of art, or in another way chosen by him or her.” So what about pornography?

I welcome the opportunity to get this one into the Hansard. I refer to an article in the Montreal Gazette on 26 July. How is this for political correctness? It says, “How about women with high-risk lifestyles?” The article was referring to prostitutes. Does that cover freedom of expression? I do not know. I am just a poor, ignorant person, confused by this Human Rights Bill and I just want to know. I am taking the words at face value. I presume that the words cover these things. I refer to clause 17, taking part in public life. Clause 17 (c) says:

have access, on general terms of equality, for appointment to the public service and public office.

What on earth does the expression “on general terms of equality” mean? Does it mean gender equity, or perhaps age? Are we dealing with legislation that can protect people like myself? Who knows? These expressions require definitions, which I do not find anywhere in this legislation. If we do not get these expressions defined in this piece of legislation, I fear that the good people of Canberra—all 320,000 of them, or at least the 120 who attended the meetings that were conducted on this legislation—will be speaking of nothing else in the next few weeks. I suggest that, unless we have this sort of clarification, this legislation is less useful than the Litter Act, and that the purpose of the legislation is not about people, it is just about left-wing philosophy.

MRS DUNNE (10.21): It is true that clause 13 says that anyone has the right to move freely within the ACT and to enter and leave it, and the freedom to choose his or her residence in the ACT but, as Mr Cornwell said, we do not have the right to own our residences and the aged of the ACT do not have the right to an appropriate residence to meet their needs.

Words sometimes fail me. The Chief Minister has stood in this place on two or three occasions and said that you cannot have your rights in this because they cannot possibly be defined. You cannot have the right to own things that you can hold such as real property, a car or a block of land—well, you cannot own a block of land in the ACT—and the right to not have them taken away from you on unjust terms.

There are screeds of law about property rights. That subject was too hard for the United Nations, so they did not address it. We know why they did not address it. There were a whole lot of lefties—communist eastern blockers—in the 1950s and 1960s who said, “Comrades, we cannot have private property. Nyet, nada—no private property.” That is why we do not have those rights.

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