Page 733 - Week 02 - Thursday, 10 March 2011
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narrow escape, this week of all weeks, when we are again debating the merits or otherwise of the capacity of a federal minister to overturn an ACT law on a whim. How fitting too that we are able to see that good, thoughtful, socially progressive law making actually does have an impact on a community, that it can drive incremental and valuable change and that it can be a power for good—the kind of progressive law making for which this territory is known and the kind of law making that remains vulnerable unless the self-government act is amended.
The mandated five-year review of the Human Rights Act digests and analyses five years of information about the implementation and impact of the Human Rights Act on the government in the ACT, as collected and analysed by the ACT Human Rights Act research project. The project was led by two of Australia’s pre-eminent human rights lawyers, Professor Hilary Charlesworth and Professor Andrew Byrnes.
Professor Charlesworth was well qualified to lead the project as she had previously led the ACT Bill of Rights Consultative Committee, which was the committee that initially recommended a bill of rights for the territory. Professor Charlesworth and Professor Byrnes have continued to be involved in the research that will inform the ACT’s way forward in this area.
This government is proud of the fact that the ACT was the first jurisdiction in Australia to enact a bill of rights, in the form of the Human Rights Act 2004. Its enactment followed extensive community consultation by the ACT Bill of Rights Consultative Committee. The ACT provided a model for Victoria, the only other state to follow the ACT’s example, which commenced its charter of human rights and responsibilities on 1 January 2007. Since then, of course, the commonwealth’s own consultation on rights protection has recommended a national charter, a recommendation that has not, unfortunately, been pursued by the Australian parliament to date.
Given the ACT’s commitment to promoting a rights-based society, the government needed to gauge our progress toward achieving such a society and take any necessary steps to enhance the protection of rights in our territory. This report marks an important step in the ACT’s development and growth as a rights-based society. The Human Rights Act incorporates most of the civil and political rights guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including such fundamental rights as the right to equal treatment, freedom of movement, freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, freedom of association and rights in criminal proceedings, to name just a few.
The Human Rights Act was established as a dialogue model to encourage a meaningful conversation about human rights issues between the three arms of government—the legislature, the judiciary and the executive—as well as with the broader community. The Canberra plan: towards our second century reinforces the ACT’s commitment to promoting a human rights culture across the full spectrum of its policy development and program and service delivery. This is a commitment the government takes very seriously. It is therefore gratifying to read in the five-year report:
… one of the clearest effects of the [act] has been to improve the quality of
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