Page 4251 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 21 September 2011
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recognised classes where it is reasonable to discriminate—single-gender schools, places such as women’s gyms, religious organisations or where explicit permission has been granted by the commissioner. These are defined situations which the community accepts, where they think it is okay and there is not a discretion on the part of a provider of a good or service. None of the existing exemptions allows a discretion for a class of person to discriminate against another class based on the discriminator’s view in a particular circumstance. This is fundamentally bad policy.
To illustrate just how bad the policy is, I would like to run through a couple of examples. Firstly, I go to CCCares—that is, Canberra College Cares. We all agree that this is a fantastic program that really helps many of Canberra’s young mums and young dads to complete their education. Part of its success is that it provides a flexible learning program that allows students to attend at different times of the day. I would ask the Canberra Liberals: do they think it is okay for a shopkeeper to say to a young mum who wants to buy lunch at her local shops, “Sorry, I will not serve you because I think you should be in school”?
I have used the easy example of buying lunch, as this was the catalyst for the bill. In fact, the bill proposes that any retailer may refuse to sell any good to a young person if they reasonably think they should be at school. What if the young woman wants to buy something from the chemist or buy some nappies for her child and the shopowner refuses to sell it? The fact is that she is enrolled in a school that is open for attendance, just as the bill provides. So the shopowner would be perfectly entitled to do this.
Are the Liberals seriously suggesting that they want to live in a community like this? What about young carers? There are thousands in our city. Is Mr Seselja seriously saying that these young people should be discriminated against? These young people, many of whom are primary carers of a sick relative, are often a parent. Imagine if Mr Seselja’s bill is in place and a young carer is at home from school looking after mum or dad and goes to the shops to get food or some other essentials. This could be something like a sports drink that may be medically required, for instance, because they are dehydrated, but which a shopowner could easily think was just something sweet for the young person.
What about if it was medication such as painkillers? Would it be okay for them to be refused service and for their sick parent to go without food or a medically required drink? Worst still, what happens if that young person is in a minority group—a Muslim, Aboriginal or Asian? What if they suffer from a disability or are homosexual? All of a sudden we have created an open slather excuse to discriminate against young people whenever one could reasonably believe they should be at school, irrespective of whether or not that is actually the reason for the discrimination. This may sound like hyperbole but the reality is that it could happen.
What about all those year 11 and 12 students who are allowed to leave school when they do not have classes? What happens to them? What happens to young people who attend Radford College and wear the same uniform in years 11 and 12 as the young students? Should they all be refused service at our shops when they are legitimately off school? What sort of a community would it be if anyone who looked young could be discriminated against?
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