Page 3308 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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This is a misguided piece of legislation in its current form. I have circulated an amendment which I believe will fix this particular bill, but, as it stands, the Labor Party’s position in this bill is that there should only be a right to a free education at primary school level. We disagree with that wholeheartedly. That is an interesting new policy that has been put forward in this proposed amendment.
We will be supporting the bill in principle, but we will be seeking to make sure that the policy outcome the Labor Party is seeking to achieve—that is, to simply enshrine and entrench the right to a free primary school education—is not entrenched. The consequence of that would be an implication that there is not a right to a free education beyond that point, and that is not something we accept. We will be seeking to fix that in the detail stage.
I also make points about the government’s record when it comes to these types of issues. I will just highlight their position when it came to the so-called right to wag. When action was taken to try and encourage school-age kids not to be wagging school by ensuring that that was not treated as a breach of the Discrimination Act, the Labor government and the Greens had the opportunity to ensure that that was put beyond doubt. Of course, we moved in this place to fix the problem, but that was rejected by the government. It is a demonstration of their warped priorities.
There is a shoddiness to this piece of legislation that we are going to have to fix in the detail stage. It is extraordinary that we have a government and a minister that have brought forward a bill that leaves open the possibility that it can be interpreted that there is no longer a right in the ACT to a free high school education and a free college education. We believe in that right. We believe that should be there. We believe that, if you did not enshrine it, it would still be understood as it is at the moment. But in seeking to enshrine it, if you do not get it right, there are some serious unintended consequences, which we will seek, as I said, to address in the detail stage.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.37): The Greens believe in protecting human rights, and our policy platform contains our commitment to legislative and procedural human rights protection in the ACT. Another aspect of our platform states that economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights are interdependent and must be respected and protected. An argument is often put that legislative protection of human rights could create a flood of litigation and a lawyers’ picnic. Put simply, however, this has not been the experience in the ACT since this jurisdiction first legislated to protect civil and political rights.
The five-year review of the act very clearly set out the evidence that there has been no flood of litigation and that there have been real improvements because of the existence of the act. To quote from the review:
Although critics predicted a surge in litigation and an undermining of the elected government by an unaccountable judiciary, the experience of the Human Rights Act is that its impact on policy making and legislative process has been more extensive and arguably more important than its impact in the courts.
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