Page 415 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 2019
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constitution. It was former Senator Gallagher from the Labor Party who was not compliant. That is called leading with your chin, Ms Cody, through you, Madam Speaker.
For the Labor Party in this place to be lecturing about the importance of laws being constitutional, evidence based and human rights compliant borders on mockery. Ignoring these issues is actually the hallmark of this government. There are many issues where this government ignores constitutional clashes. It cherrypicks selective pieces of evidence and ignores human rights issues. I could not fit them all into the 10 minutes that I have got, so I will keep it relatively brief.
Let me go to anti-consorting laws, because they were raised. We have raised this issue of the need to stem the outlaw gang violence since 2009. The need to respond to this issue is blindingly obvious. The refusal by this government is bewildering. We have tried to bring in laws before. I did so in 2017. They were constitutional, evidence based, human rights compliant and vitally needed.
Anti-consorting laws are constitutional. The New South Wales laws have been to the High Court. Let me talk about the comment made:
New South Wales submitted that the legitimate object or end of s 93X is to prevent or impede criminal conduct by deterring non-criminals from consorting in a criminal milieu and deterring criminals from establishing or building up a criminal network. That submission should be accepted.
They are also human rights compliant. The High Court said:
… it was submitted that the Parliament of New South Wales could not enact a law infringing upon the “right to freedom of association with others” set out in Art 22 … to which Australia is a party. There is no authority which would support such a proposition.
It also said:
No reasonable and equally practicable alternatives having a lesser effect on the freedom have been identified.
These have been to the High Court. They are constitutional. The legislation that I tabled in this place in 2017 was described by the ACT Human Rights Commissioner as the best of its kind in the country.
Section 28 of the ACT Human Rights Act sets out when rights can be limited. Almost all the time, rights are limited. They were with egg labelling last week. That is what the scrutiny of bills committee looks at. But if they are proportionate, if they are appropriate and if they are in the interests of the community, they would be acceptable. That is a judgement that we have to make.
That is in the context of headlines like this: “Outlaw bikie gangs heading to Canberra because of the ACT’s soft laws on consorting”, from the Daily Telegraph; “Bikies drawn to Canberra due to lack of anti-gang laws”, from the ABC; “Canberra
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