Page 1191 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 August 1989
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there. I was particularly interested, though, Mr Speaker, to see the opinion poll in the Canberra Times, which was published on Saturday. As I have felt for some time, a large majority of the Canberra population, the ordinary citizens out there - not minority vocal pressure groups, but the ordinary citizens of Canberra - support this power. Some 69 per cent - 73 per cent of women surveyed and 67 per cent of men, so effectively approximately 70 per cent - of the population support this power.
I was particularly heartened, in the light of some of the criticism coming from the Government benches, by the support this Bill has among the youth. Of those under 25, Mr Speaker, 58 per cent support it, 32 per cent are against it, and the rest are unsure. A significant majority of young people support this commonsense legislation. I was particularly heartened to see that, Mr Speaker. Indeed I think, out of all the opinion polls taken in the paper, this particular issue - the police move-on powers - received the most support by the Canberra community. I think, really, the Government should take heed of that.
A number of the arguments put up by the Government and some of its supporters - vocal minority pressure groups in many cases, and indeed probably not many, because there were not all that many of them who opposed this Bill - show up as spurious, facile, incorrect drivel put up as argument against this Bill. I now call on the Government to support this Bill as a result of the Canberra Times opinion poll. I now call on them to look at the consistent support one of their Federal colleagues, Mrs Ros Kelly, has given to police move-on powers. That is something they might like to take up within their factions, because she has indeed been, and remains, as I understand it, a consistent supporter of the move-on power.
I think, really, no matter which way one looks at the Government argument here, one has to detect just an anti-police bias coming into their argument because, no matter how they try to hide it, they are basically saying the police cannot be trusted with any legislation that will give them new power.
Arguments have been put up in relation to potential for abuse of this power. Any legislation is capable of abuse. Now, with the very minor penalty suggested for this legislation and indeed the further protection a citizen who is moved on gets in subsection (2) - it states that a person shall not, without reasonable excuse, contravene a direction given in accordance with subsection (1) - all the legitimate arguments raised against this Bill, and even perhaps some of the not so legitimate arguments, have been amply covered, and really perhaps too far covered, by this proposed new piece of legislation.
Mr Speaker, this debate on the Bill has now gone on for a number of months. I think the Government would probably never like to see this legislation actually get onto the
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