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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 583 ..

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (11.46): The government will not support this proposal. This is a very significant change to the structure of the Human Rights Act and the government does not believe that it fits within the essential structure of the Human Rights Act as conceived and drafted.

The proposal to grant the Human Rights Commissioner a conciliation function would have some significant resource implications for the government. We would have to change quite dramatically the resourcing of the Human Rights Office and of the Human Rights Commissioner, and it would change significantly, quite completely, the nature of the role that the legislation currently invests in the Human Rights Commissioner. It is the view of the government, and it was certainly the view of the consultative committee, that the commissioner not be granted this conciliation function. A complaints function is not consistent with the structure or the nature of the Human Rights Act that is being developed.

The bill or act to be embeds human rights principles across the whole of public administration of the legal system. It has implications therefore for all fields of law and administration—criminal law, defamation law, tort law, medical practice, health law, landlord and tenant—the full gamut of administration and matters that come before the legal system. The impact of the bill will obviously be felt in public and private relations and it will involve the courts in assessing the lawfulness of conduct and where the limits imposed by the Assembly are justifiable. It is the role of the courts to interpret the law and to make binding determinations on questions of lawfulness. All public decision makers under the model as developed, including the courts, tribunals and other statutory office holders will be responsible for interpreting the laws under which they exercise their powers and are to be responsible for exercising them consistently with human rights as far as that is possible.

If this particular amendment proceeds, it essentially provides that, if, for instance, in the view of the complainant a tribunal member or a judge perhaps makes a mistake or an error, the complainant would then go to the commissioner and the commissioner would review a decision of the tribunal or the court; or if, for instance, the magistrate gets it wrong, the person can then just simply proceed to the commissioner.

The government accepted the consultative committee’s recommendations to establish the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, and that has been included in the legislation. We did so because we accepted the importance of the role that an independent body can play in promoting a broader understanding of human rights. That was the recommendation and the government accepted that recommendation in good faith.

The commissioner can look at the effect of any territory law. He or she doesn’t have to wait for complaints before she reviews an area of law she is concerned about. The complaint function, we believe, is ill-conceived and would simply overwhelm the commissioner’s office and detract from this function, which we regard as the more important function. We believe it would create confusion and constitutional problems and interpose the commissioner in amongst all the existing courts, tribunals and other statutory office holders who all have responsibility to exercise their functions under the

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