Mr PRICE (1:47 PM) —I am pleased to speak on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1998 and of course, as the shadow minister, the honourable member for Banks (Mr Melham), indicated, we will be opposing the changes that comprise the bill. In the contribution of the honourable member for Bradfield (Dr Nelson), and particularly when he was reading the letters from his constituents, I was reminded of a time about 12 months ago when one of my local papers wanted to run a story about One Nation and Pauline Hanson. One of the points that I made in my contribution was that I did not believe any one political party had a monopoly on patriotism or nationalism nor any one politician. A common feature about this place, and there are some, is the strong feelings that all politicians have towards Australia.

It is interesting that we should be dealing with the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1998 because it is symptomatic of a wider problem, and that is that in the English speaking world we always pride ourselves on the rule of law. A couple of things that supplement the rule of law are the activities of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the role of the Ombudsman. I have said a number of times that it deeply disturbs me that, whilst our citizens do have legal rights before the Federal Court and the High Court, they in fact are totally incapable of exercising those rights. I have even said that, in a sense, you are almost better off not having rights, if you cannot afford to exercise them.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission was involved in a very notable or notorious case, the Brandy case. I do not think either political party—the now government or when we were in government—handled Brandy very well. The significance of Brandy is that it really prevents us introducing into the Commonwealth arena that quiet revolution that has occurred in state jurisdictions: that is, the establishment of tribunals where parties can bring matters and have them determined by tribunals.

In my own state, we have some really good examples of that. You do not need to rush off to the magistrate or the district court if you have a tenancy matter because we have a Residential and Tenancy Tribunal which hears cases day in and day out, at which parties do not need the assistance of solicitors or barristers or QCs. They do get justice, affordable justice, and they have access to the law. That does not prevent something, on a matter of law, being taken to a higher tribunal. I am trying to emphasise the accessibility for ordinary citizens. We also have the Guardianship Board, which is another example of a tribunal acting in a very difficult area of personal relations and doing an excellent job.

Last, but not least, we have the Small Claims Tribunal in my state where, again, you can take matters before it without a solicitor, without a barrister and without a QC and get settlement of your dispute. In a sense, this preserves the very high expertise associated with district courts or supreme courts or appeal courts to core legal matters. It opens up the law to ordinary citizens like those in my electorate. In addition to that, we have always had access to the Ombudsman and we have access to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

It is true that, under Labor, expenditure increased dramatically for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The government members are saying that the commission grew so rapidly that somehow we need to cut it back. I think that is a very poor argument to be offering in this debate. With the Ombudsman there was no 500 per cent increase in growth that we can refer to, and yet the Office of the Ombudsman suffered a significant cutback equal to what has happened to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. We always considered that these bodies were totally independent and outside the exercise of executive power.

What does that mean? It means that ministers should not be able to direct them. Part of the changes to this is that before the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission intervenes in a court case on behalf of a citizen or classes of citizen, they have to get the approval of the Attorney-General. We cannot say that this is an independent body and have that ministerial veto. I think it is terribly unfortunate. Of course, when you cutback the budget and cutback the staff of an organisation—I know people say that you have to do more with less—the reality is that you are denying citizens access to that body.

That was the case with the Ombudsman: you have really decided that the Ombudsman and her staff will be handling fewer matters. In other words, when there is a meritorious case for which they believe a good case operates for intervention, the Ombudsman will have to say no because of a lack of resources. I do not think this is something to be proud of.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is a body that has assisted in our region in setting up other human rights commissions. When they were in Indonesia and assisted in the establishment of the human rights commission in Indonesia, many people were very sceptical about how effective such a body could be, given the way the country was being governed. I think the most objective consensus of opinion is that the Indonesian human rights commission has done an outstanding job. Who was involved there in assisting its setting up, and why would you want to truncate the activities of such an organisation?

It is true that bodies such as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, the Ombudsman and the Auditor-General's office will always be an irritant to a government of the day because they will be providing unsolicited advice on behalf of citizens about what changes need to be made. I think we have had some tremendous reports by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. It was the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission that really pushed the envelope to say that the Defence Force needed to remove its discrimination against homosexuals.

I can recall that I was opposed to such an approach, and that there were all sorts of dire predictions about what would happen if that change came. Of course, history shows that that change has been implemented with a minimum of fuss and that our defence forces are as good as they have ever been. But there is no doubt that the government of the day did not want that report. So it is with the stolen children's report. In my state, the practice of taking Aboriginal children away from their families and placing them in orphanages, allegedly to better assist the children, continued up to the 1960s. I am sure that report was not particularly welcomed but it was an important report for the nation and particularly for those children involved.

The issue of the independence of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is a vital one. The Attorney-General (Mr Williams) said in his speech that the government had examined the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and determined that it was top heavy. Could a government member explain to the House what the process of that examination was? Was it an efficiency report by the Auditor-General? Did the government hire McKinsey to do a study of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission? Did McKinsey recommend these changes? What was the process that determined the structure? What was the process that determined that two of the three deputy presidents should be removed because the structure was top heavy?

I believe the situation is that there was no proper process of review, and that this, like the Ombudsman, was a body that the conservatives had targeted in opposition and were not going to miss when they came to government. I am very pleased that the opposition is totally opposed to the changes in this bill, and that the opposition is highlighting that it is ordinary citizens who will miss out on another avenue of redress available to them—just as, regrettably, is happening with the Ombudsman. I am pleased that the shadow minister has indicated that, if we win government at the next election, we will never implement these changes. If we are still in opposition, we will continue to oppose the changes to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, to become the Human Rights and Responsibilities Commission.

Mr SPEAKER —It being 2 p.m., the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 101A. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.