Page 4104 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 20 September 2011
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amendment seeks to rely on the provision with general protections against discrimination set out in the Fair Work Act. While both laws address similar behaviour, they will both apply to protect territory workers and operate very differently.
Under this bill discriminatory conduct is a criminal offence with a very significant maximum penalty—$100,000 for an individual or $500,000 for a body corporate. The Fair Work Act provides for civil remedies which are only $6,600 for an individual. Breaching this bill would also result in a criminal conviction being recorded. In imposing criminal liability, it is appropriate that a prohibited reason be the dominant or sole reason for discriminatory conduct. This test is applied because it is a serious offence, and significant penalties apply if a person is convicted.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (5.18): The Canberra Liberals are not able to support the amendment for the same reason as the government. The proposition put forward by the Greens would be an unreasonable constraint upon businesses going about their business. The example Ms Bresnan gave in her speech shows just what an imposition this would be upon business. Quite frankly, the fact that a business would be constrained from putting someone off, irrespective of the business’s economic circumstances, once that person became a work safety officer is just not supportable, and the Canberra Liberals will not be supporting it.
Amendment negatived.
Clause 104 agreed to.
Clause 105 agreed to.
Clause 106 agreed to.
Clauses 107 to 109, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 110.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (5.20): The Canberra Liberals oppose this clause because in this section the provisions in relation to discrimination require a reverse onus of proof. This is another rights issue about which I touched on earlier this morning. This is an issue which is, again, a departure from the general practice in relation to rights.
This morning the Chief Minister said that we had to depart from individual rights to protect workers at large on issues of public safety. That could be a tenable argument, but, on this occasion, this is a rights issue which does not do anything to protect public safety. There is absolutely no justification for creating the reverse onus of proof in this clause. As I have said very strongly for, this is a violation of the rights of people in this space and it is not a violation that the Canberra Liberals are prepared to support.
There is a longstanding tradition in common law countries that people are innocent until proven guilty, and, irrespective of a proclivity to have national template
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