Page 1764 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008
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I am critical of the handling of this issue by the territory. I believe that there has been an element of going out of the way to pick fights and antagonise on this issue, rather than negotiating things through. The initial attempt to allow 16-year-olds in a same-sex relationship to commit to what effectively was a marriage was ill advised. It was something that sparked the ire of the community and should never have been put forward. I think that they undermined their position by going down that road. I am pleased that the Attorney-General’s amendment included increasing the required age of parties to a civil partnership to 18.
I get disappointed when I hear the Chief Minister or Attorney-General railing against the federal government—more correctly, federal governments of both persuasions—for overriding territory laws. It is very hard in debate on an issue such as this, and there have been other contentious areas. Mr Berry talked about euthanasia legislation in the Northern Territory that was overridden, I believe, at the direction of Mr Andrews. It is very hard to look at these things in a non-emotional fashion and understand or appreciate the respective powers of different levels of government.
The fact is that one needs to look at that—to stand back somewhat on this issue and recognise the fact that the Australian Capital Territory does not have unfettered power. I made this point before this latest blow-up when we had a group of visitors to the chamber from various schools and this issue came up. The point I made then, and the point I make again tonight, is that the states also do not have unfettered powers. Indeed, the commonwealth does not have unfettered power. All levels of government in this country have limits upon the power that they can exercise. Does the fact that the federal government overruled these laws mean that they have overstepped the mark in the exercise of power? I would contend that that is not the case. It may be argued, in fact, that the ACT government stepped beyond its authority and power.
I know the contention that the final wash-up of this is a consequence of threats made against the Rudd government by what has been described as the religious right. I have no knowledge of those discussions; I do not know whether members here do or whether there is speculation. But I do put some store on the issue of different levels of power with different governments.
Having grown up in Tasmania, I remember a federal Labor government crunching Tasmania over the Franklin dam issue many years ago. They did not believe that the Tasmanian government had the right to make those decisions. That was okay because that was a fashionable issue, it was leading up to an election period and it was seen as populist. But the fact is that they went to the High Court to override a state. They used their external affairs powers, as I recall.
The same principle that I am getting to is that no government in this country—whether it be municipal, state, territory or commonwealth—has absolute power in every direction in terms of the way it legislates. We have to keep that in mind here. I came into this Assembly in 2004 with a fairly clear appreciation that there were limitations. The mace that sits there, I am told by a former federal minister, is an issue in itself. I am told that the Clerk of the Senate took great exception to a mace being put in this place and felt that it was beyond the capacity of this place to have that
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