Page 3351 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 October 2006
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I am grateful for the support of the opposition on this item, although I do not think I am in any way in agreement with the motives behind that support. Mr Stefaniak, in his comments earlier today, indicated that they agree with this because their preference is for the abolition of the commission in its entirety, it would appear. I think that really highlights that they are not interested in having a children’s or a young persons’ commissioner.
Mr Stefaniak: No, not at all.
MR CORBELL: You are going to keep that one?
Mr Stefaniak: We are keeping all the ones you had before the human rights commissioner.
MR CORBELL: Then you are not interested in having a disability and community services commissioner?
Mr Stefaniak: No.
MR CORBELL: You are going to keep that one.
Mr Stefaniak: It is the Human Rights Act that goes.
MR CORBELL: You are going to keep a discrimination commissioner, I assume?
Mr Stefaniak: We have a perfectly good discrimination act.
MR CORBELL: You are going to keep a human rights commissioner, I assume?
Mr Stefaniak: No. The Human Rights Act—
MR CORBELL: That is an interesting proposition. What that means, of course, is that you are going to have commissioners that look into protecting human rights, but you are not going to have a human rights commissioner.
That is the sort of strange position we see from the Liberal Party. We are going to have commissioners that are about protecting rights, but we are not going to have a human rights commissioner. I think that is a strange position for the opposition to adopt, but it just shows that it is opposition for the sake of it. It is opposition because it is an idea from the Labor Party, not an argument about the principles of the matter.
The changes we have made I know have attracted some criticism, and Dr Foskey has been most vocal in that regard. There is one critique that I would like to address from Dr Foskey. The issue about specialist generalist commissioners was the argument Dr Foskey was seeking to make.
I think our previous Human Rights and Discrimination Commissioner has demonstrated that combining roles within the one person can work very effectively, and has worked effectively in the past. Rosemary Follett, Human Rights and Discrimination
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