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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 582 ..

I think it is very important to add this complaints mechanism in the Human Rights Bill, so that people who are hearing about the human rights bill and the bill of rights that we are debating today can take complaints or concerns forward to the Human Rights Commissioner and get an answer. We in the Assembly, through the annual report, can see what people are raising questions about in relation to their human rights.

I think this will be a very important part of the legislation. It provides another mechanism, besides a legalistic process through the Supreme Court, for people to raise concerns about their human rights. I hope the Assembly sees fit to support this amendment. It is not an onerous process that we are setting up, especially as the Human Rights Commissioner is the Discrimination Commissioner. It is a process that mirrors quite closely the Discrimination Commissioner process. This amendment will help the broader community to understand their human rights and give them the opportunity to act upon their human rights.

MS TUCKER (11.44): This amendment will create not only a new path for checking human rights but also a complaints function for the Human Rights Commissioner. There would be no compensation again, but the commissioner could make a statement that they believe that rights have been breached. Investigation by a commissioner, like investigations by the Discrimination Commissioner, would not be conducted according to the rules of evidence. It would be a less formal and less costly means of investigating issues than the courts.

When we are concerned about the rights of people who are socially excluded, it does make a lot of sense to have a more accessible means to have breaches of rights drawn to the attention of the executive and Assembly in the way that this bill wants these issues to be dealt with. The government has argued against this provision on the grounds that a complaints function is very different to the main effect of the rest of this bill, which is essentially about interpretation of laws and internal matters about considering matters when laws are made.

The question for the rest of the bill is whether the law is correctly interpreted, not whether action complies with it. However, in the Human Rights Commissioner’s functions there is a broad responsibility to review the effects of territory laws on human rights. The complaints function could be argued to fit within this responsibility, inasmuch as laws govern the operations of departments. It is also similar to the court’s power to consider breaches of human rights by laws or actions. There are no direct remedies to the individuals affected beyond a statement that rights have been breached. The main difference is that it is a low cost, accessible and non-legalistic forum.

The other objection put forward to this amendment is that it requires the commissioner to make assessments on legal matters, which are properly the job of the courts. I think the best response to this concern is that there may be issues which are legally complex and which can only be dealt with in the court. However, there are likely to be other issues that are more straightforward and indeed are not amenable to a court case. It makes sense to me to have a forum for investigating and commenting on situations which otherwise may escape notice. A complementary function does not add any obligations or consequences. It is simply filling in the scrutiny and oversight gaps.

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