George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Let me correct a few misleading statements that have been made in the previous two speeches. The reason the bill is being introduced in the Senate is because all of the legislation which it amends is legislation within the Attorney-General's portfolio. I am the Attorney-General and I am a senator, not a member of the House of Representatives. That and only that is the reason why the bill is being introduced into this chamber like every bill in my portfolio is introduced here first.

Secondly, I will correct something that came from Senator Watt. It is not the truth to say that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights recommended against amending section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. It is the case that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights did not arrive at a common view on whether or not section 18C should be amended, and so a range of options was put forward ranging from no amendment through a series of alternatives, including the alternative that has been adopted by the government.

The reason the government does not favour a seven-week Senate inquiry is because the ink is barely dry on a three-month parliamentary inquiry which only reported 23 days ago on 28 February. That parliamentary inquiry—an inquiry of members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives—held nine days of public hearings, in every capital city in Australia, over the course of some 2½ months. The very thing the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights inquired into was the issues in this bill, and this bill was drafted to give effect to those recommendations, particularly in relation to amendments to the Australian Human Rights Commission Act.

There are in fact four main elements to the bill, and let me run through them. I have mentioned the amendments to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. As I said a moment ago, there was not a common view among the committee. A range of alternatives was put forward, and the government has adopted one of them. But it cannot be disputed that the issue of the language of section 18C was the principal issue before the PJCHR inquiry which proceeded for nine hearing days.

Secondly, this bill directly adopts word for word another of the recommendations of the PJCHR, which is to apply an ordinary reasonable Australian test—the so-called 'pub test'—to whether or not a breach of section 18C has occurred. That comes directly from the PJCHR report.

The third element of the bill is a range of procedural changes to the operation of the Australian Human Rights Commission through amendments to the Australian Human Rights Commission Act, not the Racial Discrimination Act, which adopt not all but many of the recommendations of that report that was tabled only 23 days ago.

Finally—and I think this is what Senator McKim may have had in mind—there are some other amendments, which were not the subject of recommendation by the PJCHR, to administrative arrangements for the Human Rights Commission which were made at the request of the commission itself and specifically at the request of Professor Gillian Triggs, whose involvement in this process has, if I may say so, been a very constructive one. Every one of those amendments is a technical amendment involving no controversy whatsoever and is merely to create efficiencies in the management of the Human Rights Commission as recommended by the commission itself.

So those are the four elements of the bill. Element No. 1 was the principal issue canvassed in submissions before the PJCHR's nine days of hearing, although it did not land on a unanimous view. Issue No. 2 was recommended by the PJCHR. Issue No. 3, procedural changes, gives effect to recommendations of the PJCHR. Issue No. 4, minor administrative practices, was recommended by the Human Rights Commission itself. In those circumstances we do not need to do this all over again, because over 2½ months it has just been done.