Page 4250 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 21 September 2011
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community regarding young people’s experience in schooling and their transitions on to further education, training and work. The commitment is aimed at ensuring ACT government agencies that serve young people to the age of 17 commit to ensuring that no young person is lost from education, training or a job. The government anticipates that policies to improve participation, lift qualifications and support successful transitions in ACT schools will also aid in the prevention of youth disengagement from the education system.
The government is committed to promoting a rights-based legal framework in the territory. Any attempt at incursions on the important right not to be discriminated against on the basis of a protected attribute such as age should be family justified; otherwise, it should be strongly opposed.
For the stated reasons, the government will not support this bill.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (7.48): The Greens do not support this bill and will never support any attempts to legislate to allow a person the individual discretion to discriminate against another member of our community. I must say, having spent 10 years of my life prior to entering this place defending and promoting the interests of children and young people, that I am particularly disappointed that there is a view in this place that it might be okay to discriminate against young people.
Firstly, I would make the point that this amendment is entirely futile and, even if it is passed, the commonwealth Age Discrimination Act 2004, section 28, covers the same ground and makes it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of age, which is exactly what the bill is proposing to do.
We all know that to the extent there is any inconsistency, the commonwealth law prevails, and I am genuinely at a loss to understand how the Liberals think this change could operate. There is no exemption in schedule 1 of the Age Discrimination Act that would allow for this. It is directly contradictory with the commonwealth law; so there is a very strong argument against its validity at all. I have sought the advice of the ACT discrimination commissioner and been advised that the commonwealth act would indeed apply to the type of conduct anticipated in the bill and that the commission would advise any person who felt they had been discriminated against to contact the commonwealth commissioner to investigate the matter.
Further, following public statements by Mr Seselja earlier today, I have sought the advice of the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission about the situation in Queensland and the lawfulness of the conduct Mr Seselja’s bill contemplates. The Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission advised that they would certainly investigate a complaint of that nature, and in all likelihood it would amount to a breach of the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Act. I can find no exemption of this nature in any other state legislation. As I said, I suspect that this is because it would be invalid for any state parliament to enact such a measure as it is directly contradictory with the provisions of the commonwealth law.
Mr Assistant Speaker, on the issue of creating a discretion, this would be a particularly bad precedent to set. Other exemptions are based on particularly well-
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