Senator ABETZ(12.46 p.m.) —Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. This is the first time that you have been in the chair when I have risen to my feet. I wish you well in your job as Acting Deputy President.

Today, I wish to canvass an aspect of the euthanasia debate which I find profoundly interesting, given my outspokenness on that aspect, which has engendered considerable public comment. In my first speech in this place, I stressed the importance of having a truly federal system of government. Those who served with me on the legal and constitutional affairs committee of the Senate and the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties would be aware of my continual concern at treaties impinging on the legislative domain of the states.

In November 1994 I voted for the rights of the legislature of my home state of Tasmania against the views adopted by my party. In short, I believe that I have some credentials to speak on the issue of the impact of the bill introduced by the member for Menzies (Mr Andrews), the Euthanasia Laws Bill 1996, on what has been dubbed territory rights. Today, I do not wish to canvass the merits of the Northern Territory's euthanasia legislation. However, views have been expressed in the community on the issue of territory rights. It seems to be used in the same context as states rights.

This appeal to territory rights in the context of the euthanasia debate is baseless and intellectually unsustainable. The rights of territories are simply that bundle of rights bestowed upon a territory by the goodwill of this the Commonwealth parliament. The foundation of the Northern Territory's alleged rights are rooted in the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act 1978, passed by the Commonwealth parliament. Therefore, the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly only exists by virtue of the federal parliament's goodwill. What the parliament gives, it can also take away.

This is in stark contrast to the states, which combined to form the Commonwealth and federal parliament for specific purposes. The states pre-dated the Commonwealth. A quick read of our constitution provides the salient differences and exposes the shallowness of talking territory rights in the same breath as states rights.

Section 122 of our constitution was drafted by our founding fathers and democratically accepted by the peoples of the various states. It has been part of the legislative province of the federal parliament since the inception of the constitution and has remained so ever since. Section 122 reads in part, as follows:

The parliament may make laws for the government of any territory . . .

Nothing could be clearer. No highly paid QCs are needed for this one. It is crystal clear—literally black on white:

The parliament may make laws for the government of any territory . . .

It is under that power that the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act was enacted. This act provides for the appointment of an administrator of the Northern Territory by the Governor-General. The same legislation under section 9 allows for disallowance of any Legislative Assembly enactment, once again, by the Governor-General. `Governor-General' in this context means the federal executive, or a simple cabinet decision.

Under section 53 of the Northern Territory (Self- Government) Act, the federal Industrial Relations Act applies in relation to industrial disputes in the territory. Each state has its own industrial relations regime—not so the territories. Under section 23 of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act, there are matters specifically excluded from the ACT Legislative Assembly's power to make laws, ranging over numerous matters and issues, including the classification of materials for the purposes of censorship—a power enjoyed and exercised by each and every state. Given the behaviour of the ACT on this issue, it is little wonder that the federal parliament refused to trust the ACT with the power to classify and censor.

In relation to the Australian Capital Territory (Self- Government) Act of 1988, I note that the Governor-General has the power to dissolve the ACT Legislative Assembly under section 16 and appoint a commissioner, similar to the power that the state governments enjoy in relation to local councils. But do we hear the state premiers condemning the interference by state governments in local government affairs? Hardly likely, given their quite high-handed treatment, on occasions, of local government.

The premiers' response would undoubtedly be that local government is set up by state legislation and that the state governments therefore have a right to determine how local governments operate, and their electors in their various states will ultimately judge them in due course. I agree with them. But if that is—and we know it is—the response of state premiers, then they cannot complain about the Commonwealth parliament dealing in exactly the same way with creations of its own legislation, namely the territories.

I trust the point has been made: territories are hardly in the same category as the states, which the Constitution Act reminds us created the Commonwealth when its preamble tells us:

Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth . . .

In short, to talk about states' rights in the context of a territory is to demean the currency of federalism. It is galling in the extreme to witness the Paul-like conversion of commentators to the principle of states' rights when they have previously dismissed them. They supported federal intervention to take away land management decisions from a state—denying a clean hydro-power scheme in favour of fossil fuels under the ludicrous guise of an international responsibility to the environment—or the interference in a state's right to determine its own criminal code.

Yet on a subject dealing with the issue of life and death of Australian citizens, we are suddenly confronted by a frenzied breast-beating and chanting of not states rights but territory rights. Those who oppose the Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Bill on states rights grounds look with absolute amazement at the disingenuous arguments and intellectual dishonesty of those now promoting the new found concept of territory rights whilst they retain a strange silence on states rights.

The case for the states retaining their legislative provinces is a lot stronger, indeed overwhelming, given the founding fathers' drafting of the constitution and its acceptance by our forebears through referenda. The real effort ought be put into restoring the federal balance which has been so badly undermined by international treaty making, so-called international jurisprudence and our own High Court's desire to play politician legislator rather than judge.

A lot of woolly thinking has given expression to this claim of territory rights. In applying this concept in the context of states rights there has been a demeaning of federalism and a misunderstanding of our constitutional history and the role of the territories. Requests to uphold the integrity of the constitution and the federal balance are welcome but simultaneously severely undermined when those same requests embrace the territories for which the Commonwealth parliament has a clear and unambiguous legislative responsibility.

Like state governments that can sack local councils, amalgamate them and foist their own planning legislation on them, this federal parliament must similarly determine whether or not to deal with a creation of its legislation—the territories—in a like fashion. That is an appropriate consideration and a matter which ought exercise our collective mind as a federal parliament. But in exercising our mind on this matter, we should not obfuscate the debate and our considerations by hiding behind an intellectually unsustainable argument by appealing to territory rights which have no basis in constitutional law.

Given that this parliament has the clear and unambiguous right to legislate in relation to the territories, the only question remaining is whether it should exercise that clear and unambiguous right. I would assert to this parliament that it should only do so on the rarest of occasions.

But, when no other equivalent country or state has legislated in a similar manner and when the legislation deals with the most fundamental issue facing its citizenry, that of life and death, I believe we have the firm foundation required for justifying the exercise of the Commonwealth's clear and unambiguous power—a power granted not by dubious international treaties or contorted High Court decisions but from the power specifically crafted and provided to us as a parliament by our founding fathers and accepted by our forebears in referenda.

Federalism and the role of the states in our Australian body politic are commodities too precious to be diluted by ill-considered notions of territory rights. In short, territories ain't states. Let the debate continue on whether this parliament ought exercise its clear and unambiguous powers on the merits of the euthanasia issue.