Page 3006 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 23 August 2005
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purview and which are important to ordinary citizens. For some reason these matters are not investigated by the commission. Examples that come to mind are the right of club employees to gamble at the venue where they work in their own time, and the inability of the commission to resolve the problem of a citizen who could not get their help with incorrect traffic convictions on their record. That makes me fear that the average punter will probably not get much out of this.
In relation to the matter of Errol Good, he was quite happy to go public on it. He has no complaint with the politeness exhibited by the Human Rights Office. He said they were very polite; there were no dramas there but they were simply unable to do it because it was effectively government policy. I must correct what the Chief Minister said on radio about this. I think he said it was something scrutiny of bills would have picked up. It was a practice enhanced in a regulation that did not come to the scrutiny committee because we did not have the capacity to look at regulations at that stage. I just want to correct him there because it is not something the committee would pick up. Peter Bain, of course, is excellent at picking up all sorts of things. That surely would have been picked up if it had been in force. Stephen Argument now does that. We have him on board this year to look at regulations. I just correct the Chief Minister there.
Quite clearly that was a rights issue—the right of a member to go to a club in his own time. In the past he had been able to have a flutter, play the pokies and maybe have a go at the TAB, but he was precluded because of a change in government policy. Surely, given that that was an existing regulation and policy, you would think that would be something the Human Rights Office could investigate. They have a broad brief to investigate existing acts and indicate whether or not they are compatible with human rights. As I said, when it was drawn to their attention in, I think, early February by Mr Good they were very polite but for some reason they did not investigate the matter. I think that is something people expect them to do
The other example I gave was of someone who had incorrect traffic convictions on their record and Human Rights Office assistance was again asked for. They wrote a letter back saying he could take it up legally and that he needed to get legal advice and perhaps initiate action, which would have been costly. I also made representations to the Minister for Urban Services or the Road Transport Authority. They admitted there had been an error and expunged the incorrect convictions from that person’s record. The Human Rights Office was not needed at all.
It concerns me that the average punter is not really going to get anything out of this and that the winners with this sort of legislation are perhaps the ideologues, the chattering classes, the people who think a Human Rights Act is a wonderful thing. We will wait to see whether the average punter gets much out of this. It is certainly costing us a lot more money. If the government were keen to improve these areas perhaps these individual agencies could receive a little bit more attention.
I do not think this mega commission is going to do anything. Again I think it goes back to the effectiveness of whether we need a human rights act or not. It has been in operation for 12 months. There have clearly been instances where ordinary, average people have not been assisted by it. It has been mentioned on a number of occasions in court. It has certainly been used on two or three occasions in relation to bail applications where, had it not been in effect, no doubt the person would not have got bail. I am
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