Mr SNOWDON (10:45 AM) —Yesterday afternoon I was talking about the impact on legal aid of this legislation, the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 1998 . I made the point about the way in which the application of this law and the changes to the way legal aid organisations around Australia are being treated has discriminated against a large number of Australians. I quoted from a letter from the Victorian Legal Aid Commission which outlined the concerns very succinctly. When we are contemplating this legislation, we should be thinking about the human rights impacts of changing the way in which legal aid is applied in this country.

One of the issues which this legislation deals with is cuts to the budget of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. I want to talk about that issue briefly because it should be of concern to all of us. Without too much exaggeration, you could contemplate this Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill as an attack on the rights of the disadvantaged and those who suffer from discrimination within our society. As a result of the proposals, there will be major cuts to a wide range of justice related services. I discussed those last night in relation to the cuts to legal aid.

From my point of view, just as important are the cuts to the budget of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the impact of those cuts on the operations of the commission. What we learn is that a large number of positions will be cut from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission as a result of the cuts which have been made by government decision. That affects the ability of the commission to be able to properly and in a considered way deal with the interests of all those who may have concerns about their human rights. I believe that as a community we should be extremely concerned about the direction in which this government is heading in relation to these human rights issues.

I understand that another piece of legislation will come before the House shortly, and I will be addressing that, but I note in passing the way in which the government's position has changed in relation to a number of significant issues to do with human rights.

My constituency is the Northern Territory, which has particular issues and problems in relation to human rights. Most recently that was highlighted by Commissioner Chris Sidoti, the Human Rights Commissioner and Acting Disability Discrimination Commissioner, in a report entitled Bush Talks from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

In this report Mr Sidoti looks at the fundamental services which should be provided to all Australians. In particular, he highlights service delivery in relation to health and in doing so he bases his inquiry on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, article 12, which says:

The States parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

He undertook investigations in relation to that issue. He also looked at issues relating to access to education. He quoted from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 26, which reads:

Everyone has the right to education.

He then looked at the issue of other essential needs and again quoted from the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, article 22, which says:

Everyone, as a member of society, . . . is entitled to realization . . . of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

I apologise for the unreconstructed language of these United Nations covenants. He then addresses the issue of valuing children and young people, and that is a very important issue for all of us. He uses as the foundation for this inquiry the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, article 10, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 3, which states:

States Parties undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being . . .

It is not my intention to go through the detail of that document, but it highlights the range of issues which are properly the province of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. There is a particular issue that I want to contemplate for just a moment. It emerged in the Northern Territory only the day before yesterday and may well be the subject of an inquiry by HREOC.

That relates to a proposal released by the Northern Territory government in a document entitled The Face of Alice Springs in Ten Years Project: Public Discussion Paper in which they propose a pilot program to modify management of social security payments to residents of bush communities. The purpose is twofold: to minimise some of the consequences of social issues arising from the drift to Alice Springs, and to maximise the potential for social development in bush communities.

I do not want to be too crude about this, but this is a very divisive, I think very discriminatory, and ultimately quite racist proposal, because what they are seeking to do is remove the entitlement of individual social security income support recipients—whatever benefit they receive—and remove the right of Aboriginal people who are recipients of these benefits to receive these benefits in their home communities. I do not have to say what this has the potential to do.

It is clear that this proposal is directly in contravention of section 9 of the Racial Discrimination Act. It also contravenes the Social Security Act. Nevertheless, it is a proposal—a considered proposal, one would have thought—which is being put to the Northern Territory community in the first instance—I suggest, because of its gravity—and to the Australian community in relation to the exercise of individual rights and the receipt of benefits which individuals are properly entitled to under a piece of Commonwealth legislation, the Social Security Act.

I raise this not because I want to go to the detail of this proposal necessarily, but to highlight the importance of ensuring that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is given sufficient resources to be able to undertake its very important and diverse task. I note that in relation to these sorts of issues there are numerous reports, apart from this report from Mr Sidoti, which relate to the rights of all Australians in relation to their human rights. In particular, one of the factors which commends Mr Sidoti's report to the reading of all parliamentarians is that it highlights an issue which I do not think really is in the front of the minds of most parliamentarians and is certainly not in the front of the minds of parliamentarians who do not live in or have experience of living in a remote and regional area.

What it asserts—and I think properly asserts—and identifies quite properly is the lack of service provision and fundamental rights that most Australians take for granted in terms of the provision of health, housing, essential infrastructure and support systems. It seems to me that it should be acknowledged that this exercise by Mr Sidoti—although not supported by some governments—is a great service to us all, because he has been able to pinpoint major factors in terms of impediments to lifestyle for many Australians. Significantly, these Australians he is referring to live in the bush—thus, the title of the report, Bush Talks.

There are many ways in which we need to be contemplating the role of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, but we should not handicap its operation by significantly digging into the resources which are made available to it, to the point where it loses its capacity to be able to properly identify and search into these sorts of matters. I say to the government that whilst I understand and appreciate your assertion about the diligence of budgetary constraints, what you ought to be contemplating is the enormous impact that your budget decisions may have on the rights of Australians. Certainly, I think there is now a clear demonstration that the way in which you have nobbled the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is going to inhibit its capacity to undertake much of the work for which it has become, I think, well known and for which it has a great deal of public support.

I know and I hope that the Attorney would concede that there are significant human rights issues which have yet to be revealed or addressed properly in terms of inquiries by this parliament or even the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission but that what we ought to be doing is seeking every possible avenue to ensure that as individuals we Australians are able to express properly what our human rights ought to be and we ought to be able to critically appraise our own performance in relation to these issues. Unfortunately, one view of the way in which the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has been treated is that the government may be trying to censor its operations so it does not reveal the enormity of some of these issues to the Australian community.