Page 1189 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 August 1989
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Subsection (2) states:
A person shall not, without reasonable excuse, contravene a direction given in accordance with subsection (1).
Penalty: $200.
The legislative drafter, in accordance with the directions of the committee, incorporated the four areas the majority of the committee wished incorporated - that is, crime of violence, fighting in a public place, intimidation of a person, or damage to property - in his definition of "violent conduct". Subsection (6) refers to violence, taking in the crime of violence, or violence, or fighting in a public place, intimidation of a person and damage to property.
Subsection (3), which was placed in the original Bill - and I will come back to that briefly - was left in on the recommendations of the committee. That has not been altered from the original Bill. Because the majority committee wished to put in 24 hours' community service, we had subsections (4) and (5) added. Indeed, in subsection (6), the definition section, there is a definition of "community service order" and "Crimes Act". Those subsections were necessary to enable the 24-hour provision, which was what the majority of the committee wished, to go in. I will come back to that later because there is a problem which arises there which committee members are aware of.
Also as a result of the majority committee report, a cessation of operation clause was put in - that is section 4 of the Bill - which states:
Section 35 of the Principal Act as amended by this Act, unless sooner repealed, shall cease to be in force at the expiration of 2 years after the commencement of this Act.
That is the sunset clause. No doubt by now all members have read the select committee report in relation to the Bill.
Might I say, Mr Speaker, as I said when I brought down the select committee report, that I believe this truncated version of my original Bill is not as effective. I believe what was initially placed before the house by me, and amended as per paragraph 3, which is still there, gave adequate safeguards and also gave a full and proper move-on power to the Australian Federal Police. There are problems, indeed, with any suggestion of sunset clauses in legislation, but that is the majority committee report and that has been put in the new Bill.
I think I indicated in my dissenting report that that is one thing perhaps that I do not see the necessity for, but nevertheless it is there. I believe the new Bill does cover most situations in which police would need to use a
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