Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – That was a lovely contribution member for Launceston, and it goes to that old saying, there is no such thing as a bad short speech.
The Greens will be proud to support the Disability Rights, Inclusion and Safeguarding (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2025. I also want to warmly commend the best disability minister we have had in least a decade, Ms Palmer, the member for Rosevears, for her passionate determination, working with the wonderful people who she works with in the agency. These are advisers who have deep knowledge in this area of public policy and it shows in the legislation the House passed last year.
The legislation that is before us today, as the minister and the member for Launceston have pointed out, has consequential amendments that are not particularly substantive, although primarily, through the bill, you will see it is replacing the old act, the Disability Service Act 2011, with the Disability Rights, Inclusion and Safeguarding Act 2024. There are some extra provisions that have been included in this bill that will strengthen the act we passed last year on the Senior Practitioner role, the making of regulations and the like.
One of the things particularly important to remind ourselves as we debate this bill, mindful of the bill, the principal act, is we here in Tasmania are actually going against a political trend happening in some countries around the world where diversity, equity and inclusion have become dirty words. Where there is deliberate government policy in the United States, for example, to make society less inclusive to pretty much everyone except white men. Of course, a society that is genuinely inclusive and protects the rights of all its citizens, no matter their gender, race, religion, beliefs, whether they are employed or not and all of those other attributes under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998, is a healthier and happier society.
If your metric is the economy alone it makes for a stronger economy. When you tap into all the knowledge, skills, capacity and the will of your people then you are making for a stronger community and economy. That is a foundational principle in the Disability Rights, Inclusion and Safeguarding Act 2024. It makes me really proud as a Tasmanian and as a Tasmanian legislator to see that both Houses of this parliament and a conservative government is not only prepared to stand by diversity, equity, and inclusion, but puts its money where its mouth is in relation to people with disability. These are those moments that we have in parliament that are perhaps too rare, when we all agree on the soundness of the approach.
I did want to highlight ‑ it would be negligent if I did not ‑ that there are other outstanding matters in this area. We have commitments we made under the optional protocol against torture and cruel and inhumane treatment. We have a statutory body in the National Preventive Mechanism that is manifestly underfunded to perform its statutory roles to go into places where people are confined or deprived of their liberty to prevent harm. There are people with disability, Tasmanians with disability, who either in their workplace or where they live, can be confined of their liberty and have their rights not upheld and protected. No government, no service provider, no system can have its eyes everywhere all the time. We learn that through bitter and tragic experience in child safety.
I implore this good‑hearted minister to advocate, as a number of members in this place have and in the other place, and on committees, to make sure the National Preventive Mechanism is properly funded to do the job that parliament requires it to do. Evidence that has come before a parliamentary committee confirms is not possible on the level of funding that the National Preventive Mechanism has been provided with. As we understand it, that critical entity has not been able to investigate, to go out into places where people may be deprived of their liberty to determine whether or not that person is being subject to cruel and inhumane treatment or torture. The principles in the Disability Rights, Inclusion and Safeguarding Act 2024 are absolutely right, rock‑solid and necessary. We needed legislation like this that lifted the human rights of people with disability. We now need to match that with a commitment from government to make sure that those statutory entities – which are all part of an interconnected network of protection of marginalised people, protection of young people in Ashley Youth Detention Centre, for example – are enabled to do the work that they need to do. We have a long and sorry history in this state, reaching back more than a century, of putting people out of sight and mind – in places that you know well like Willow Court at New Norfolk, like Ashley Youth Detention Centre, like Millbrook Rise, all sorts of places where, as a state, it was considered appropriate and at some level necessary to lock people away, deprive them completely of their rights, give them no voice, and provide them with no advocacy and no statutorily protective structures like we have in place now.
We have learned from our history, I hope. Not to the extent, of course, that we need to, to protect the rights of all our citizens. As a state we have been through the traumatic experience of the commission of inquiry, where it became clear to the broad Tasmanian community that ‑ and this is on no political party or government – that the state of Tasmania had been responsible for perpetuating harm against children and young people and against people with disability.
We know full well that it is one thing for there to be a piece of legislation that requires we respect and protect children and young people, people with disability, older people, or people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. We have some wonderful pieces of legislation on the statutes here, like the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998, and like the principle act that we are debating today. We need that protective architecture through the statutory bodies that parliament has given approval to, to be strengthened and properly funded.
In good spirit, I ask the minister to take this up again with her colleagues in Cabinet. It is unacceptable that we would have these obligations under OPCAT and establish a national preventative mechanism, and not provide the funding that enables the NPM to do their job on behalf of all Tasmanians, any Tasmanian, who may be deprived of their rights and liberty and be unable because of their circumstance to advocate for themselves or to find a way to safety. I hope that the minister takes up that lack of funding.
Ultimately, of course, what we need to see here in our community is a human rights act for Tasmania. We have recognised through the Disability Rights, Inclusion and Safeguarding Act 2024 that the human rights of our citizens need to be lifted up in legislation. We have an opportunity, particularly in the make‑up of the parliaments that we have now, to uplift and strengthen the rights of all Tasmanians.
Sitting suspended from 4.00 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.
Resumed from above.
Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I was just about to finish a sentence to say it is really important that we have a human rights act for Tasmania and that we lift up the rights of all our citizens, no matter what their background, because that makes us a stronger and happier community.
