Page 385 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 4 March 2008
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The Attorney-General says that public education is an essential part of the process of an embedded human rights culture, and he is right. So why does this bill not include an amendment requiring the government to table the reasoning behind human rights compliance statements? Presumably, the ethical and legal reasoning exists somewhere in secret files of the bureaucracy. I just want to read from the discussion paper of the Department of Justice and Community Safety on the Human Rights Act 2004, which talks about the compatibility statement and makes similar points to the ones that have been made by the scrutiny of bills committee over and over again. It states:
The compatibility statement clearly serves a significant role in the ‘dialogue model’. It reflects the internal dialogue among the various component arms of the executive and it is this internal process that has been most dramatically affected by the HRA.
Some commentators—
read the Greens—
are concerned about the content of the compatibility statement. In most cases a one-page statement—
a one-line statement—
is issued as evidence of the conversation between the sponsoring agency and the Human Rights Unit in the Department of Justice and Community Safety on Human Rights issues.
This one-page statement—
one-line statement—
has been criticised for its failure to facilitate a human rights dialogue among the community, the executive and the legislature.
Peter Bayne, the adviser to the scrutiny of bills committee suggests that, and I quote from him:
… compatibility statements contribute nothing to dialogue, at least where they merely state that the Bill is compatible.
Although he notes:
… the Explanatory Statement may address the HRA issues, sometimes at a relatively sophisticated level.
He uses the word “may” there. The discussion paper also states:
The brevity of the statement, or the lack of publicity given to the dialogue within the executive, seems to have prompted some concern as to the growth of a wider human rights dialogue, and, potentially, the development of a broader human rights culture … Effectively, the content of the statement, it is said, reflects the quality of the dialogue.
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