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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Thursday, 19 August 2004) . . Page.. 3975 ..

MR CORNWELL: We do not need the assistance of the Chief Minister—

Mr Quinlan: Missionaries! Get out of here!

MR CORNWELL: Here we go! The good old lefties again, you see—the anti-religious push! In the words of Mr Stanhope, the defence rests. There is nothing further that I need to say.

Human rights

MR HARGREAVES (6.02): I welcome the announcement of Liberal Party corrective services policy from Mr Cornwell—obviously he has been talking to Mr Stefaniak for some time—and I see that the Liberal Party has just announced the reintroduction of the death penalty in the ACT for alleged crimes. The issue Mr Cornwell has raised refers to what Mr Pratt was saying just the other day, or it might have been yesterday—it was so long ago.

You have to put on the record the fact that, prior to the introduction of the Human Rights Act, the presumption of innocence was not a right; it was a convention. The right to a fair trial was not a right; it was a convention. In this town it is now a right. What happened to old Reilly, ace of spies, over here when he was incarcerated without trial? What were people belly-aching about then? Do you know what it was? It was because he was locked away without a fair trial in one country, and he was in fact punished without any guilt being proven.

In his own words, he said last night, “I was not a spy; I was an alleged spy.” An alleged spy! An “alleged spy” means that he should therefore get the benefit of natural justice. What was he doing last night? He was denying the same thing to a citizen of this country. Let us have a look at Mr Hicks. He has all the smells of a terrorist about him, and he runs with people who have all the smells of a terrorist about them. So he might be a mercenary—okay, fine. What happened was that he was kidnapped in one country—

Mrs Cross: And he was tortured!

MR QUINLAN: Yes. He was kidnapped in one country by another country occupying that area.

Mr Pratt: Mr Speaker, I wish to raise a point of order. Under standing order 55 I refer, in the body of this august speech, to an imputation that I must have been illegally carrying out spying activities. Spying is a criminal activity. It is an imputation, a slur, a character assassination.

MR SPEAKER: It is a point of debate. If you want to raise the issue, you can.

MR HARGREAVES: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Mr Hicks was kidnapped in one country, which was Afghanistan; he was then taken by a second country, which was America; he was then taken to a third country—to Guantanamo Bay—and promptly tortured. Where was the presumption of innocence? Where was the fair trial? It was nowhere. We heard that sort of sentiment expressed by Mr Cornwell. We all know that Mr Stefaniak is

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