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

Can I just indicate that the opposition also opposes this amendment. Indeed, I do not adopt all of the reasons expressed by Senator Evans because, as you know, Mr Temporary Chairman, the opposition’s criticism of the National human rights consultation report is a very trenchant criticism. We do not think that the most powerful reason for not supporting the Greens amendments is that we are awaiting the government’s very tardy, leaden-footed, reluctant and slow response to that very deeply flawed report. We think there is a more obvious reason not to support the amendment, and that is that the suite of antidiscrimination laws, in the opposition’s view, should be limited to broad generic categories, whether it be race, gender, matrimonial status or sexuality. We think that to bring within the categories of the generic racial discrimination laws so narrow a category as this would not be good policy. That is not what the structure of the suite of racial discrimination legislation was designed for. For that reason the opposition is unpersuaded by the amendment.

Question negatived.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment; report adopted