Page 463 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 8 March 2011
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This issue has, of course, been tied up, quite intentionally so, with another issue, which I think is most unfortunate. For instance, there are some people out there who are prejudiced and who do want to continue to discriminate against people such as gays and lesbians in our community. That is, of course, not what this issue is about. It is not why Senator Bob Brown has proposed this change. The issue is about the democratic rights of the parliament and the people of the ACT. I think that is where we really need to be focusing today.
I find it quite interesting that in Mr Seselja’s speech there is very little actually on the issue and about where he stands on this issue of democratic rights of the people of the territory. He does want to go off on other tangents and I am not sure what he wants to talk about. He is wandering off down side paths when really, at the end of the day, this is very, very simple: do the Canberra Liberals stand up for the democratic rights of the territory and territorians or are they not going to do that? Are they going to support Senator Brown’s bill, which is a very simple change to the self-government act, to ensure that we are not treated as second-class citizens. That is at the heart of this debate that we are having today.
I really did not get a sense at all from Mr Seselja that he understood that, that he understood it is very, very simple: where do you stand? That is what I would like to be asking and am asking the Canberra Liberals here now: where do you stand on the democratic rights of people in the territory? We are not second-class citizens. There is no rationale and there is no just cause for the current section 35 in the self-government act, and it should be repealed. Where do the Canberra Liberals stand on that issue?
Again, I think that is unfortunate because the Canberra Liberals have bailed out of the debate.
Mr Smyth interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Smyth. You will have your chance in a minute. Order!
MS HUNTER: The Liberals have to say if they agree. You need to stand here and you need to tell the people of Canberra whether you agree that Canberrans are too well educated to make their own laws, to know their own mind. Do you agree that this place cannot be trusted or do you think that this place is a responsive and accountable legislature that should be able to make its own laws free from the arbitrary interference by the federal executive. Where do you stand on that issue?
Do the Liberals believe in change? I find it very odd that on the one hand they say that they agree things need to change. Yet they do not want to actually support this legislation. Senator Gary Humphries, one of their colleagues up on the hill, is a man who is quite often out there talking about how he stands up for Canberrans and their democratic rights. Obviously, the Canberra Liberals are indicating quite clearly that they are not going to talk to their colleagues to ensure that this wrong is righted, that this change is made.
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