Page 1324 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Having made those brief remarks about my support for these government amendments, I also wish to oppose clause 23. I might ask the Assembly that we take the matters separately, that we deal with clauses 1 to 22 and then proceed from there.
MR SESELJA (Brindabella) (10.52): We will be supporting these amendments.
Amendments agreed to.
Ordered that the question be divided.
Clauses 2 to 22, as amended, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 23.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (10.53): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you, colleagues, for that procedural sorting out. As outlined in the in-principle debate, the Greens will not be supporting this clause because the proposed change breaches the fundamental right to the presumption of innocence and we believe it is incompatible with the protection given in the Human Rights Act.
The Human Rights Act requires that laws that limit human rights must be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. The effect of this clause, we believe, is far from justifiable. In presenting the Human Rights Act, Mr Stanhope said:
The object of this bill is to give recognition in legislation to basic rights and freedoms. It is a clear and unequivocal commitment by this government … By passing this bill we commit ourselves to minimum standards in our law making. It is a bottom line, a floor below which we should not fall.
He also said:
… we can’t afford to be complacent. We can’t take our fundamental rights and freedom for granted in the 21st century any more than our forebears and ancestors could in the centuries that went before.
It seems that this bill has proven the validity of Mr Stanhope’s concerns. In fact this erosion of basic rights is exactly what the Human Rights Act should be protecting, as the floor through which we cannot fall in a modern, developed democracy. One has to ask the question: if the Human Rights Act does not protect against this law, exactly what does it do to protect the presumption of innocence?
There is no doubt that at times it is possible to create statutory presumptions over conduct that do not unreasonably limit our basic rights. This is not one of those times. This can only be characterised as an arbitrary limitation, nothing more than an attempt to overcome other shortcomings, rather than any real advance in combating drugs. Mr Stanhope also said in that speech:
Without a yardstick against which to measure rights, we risk the whittling away of rights protection.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video