Celia Hammond (Curtin, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I note that the honourable member for Moreton, in presenting a previous committee report last week and in presenting the committee report today, has made some comments about the functioning of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. Last week, and again today, the member for Moreton has said:

We consider it regrettable that it has become necessary to prepare another dissenting report for this previously well-functioning committee.

He further stated that this committee does not exist to be partisan or to rubberstamp government policy, irrespective of the political party occupying the treasury bench.

On the second point, I note my full agreement with the member for Moreton. This committee should not be a rubber stamp for government. However, and with due respect to the member for Moreton and the many years he has served on this committee, I would counter his suggestion that this committee has been historically well-functioning. To this end, I note publicly available comments made by my colleague the member for Berowra, who, in 2018, and after serving on this committee for two years, called for the committee's abolition. In so doing, he stated:

… the Human Rights Committee operates differently to every other committee in the Parliament.

In fact, I do not believe it is truly a committee of the Parliament.

I believe it is a bureaucracy that has appropriated the name of the Parliament.

The Committee is about bureaucrats judging Parliament, rather than the Parliament judging human rights.

He further stated:

… committee members just show up to rubber stamp a report prepared by unelected human rights lawyers.

Just as the member for Berowra did, I offer these comments with no disrespect to those people who've served on or continue to serve on this committee, nor the hardworking professional officers or advisers who make up the secretariat. I offer these comments to make the point that issues with this committee are not new and to suggest that it may be timely for this parliament to consider the purpose, remit and functioning of this committee to ascertain whether it is in fact contributing in any meaningful way to the protection of the human rights of Australian citizens.

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