Page 1310 - Week 07 - Thursday, 24 August 1989
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Mr Stefaniak has also put up an amendment to the Bill omitting the subclauses dealing with the community service order, and I will be supporting that amendment. I am glad to hear that the Government will be consulting with community groups with regard to this issue and that the Social Policy Committee is also looking into public behaviour.
It would be nice to think that maybe, at the end of that consultation and inquiry, this Bill would not need to be reinforced in two years' time, but whether that is practicable or a part of life is a different thing. I personally am very worried about the powers being abused and will be monitoring them very carefully. I hope to be fully informed for the next two years on who is charged with offences relating to the Bill.
I also hope that the recommendation dealing with the South Australian cautionary diversion program is also looked at because the attitudes of police and young people today need to be looked at and if possible improved; there is a big rift there. I would also like to see the program for education within the school system expanded. To end these comments I would just like to say it has been very good experience for me and we will be supporting it.
MR PROWSE (10.54): Mr Deputy Speaker, there are many who have spoken against this Bill. Comments have been made outside the Assembly suggesting that this Act will bring in new powers for the people and new powers for the police. That is not so. The police had these powers for years and they used them widely and wisely within the ACT. I cannot understand what the furore is about. It makes me cold to think that people are objecting and in doing so preventing the police from carrying out our wishes.
There are people within this community who are concerned for liberties, and I applaud that. We do not want to come down on the liberties of the public but we must curtail the liberties of the loutish element to protect the liberties of those citizens whom we are here to defend and whose wages we are being supported by. They pay the taxes. Let us remember that the majority of the public want to be free to walk in this society. There were comments made, during the debate on this issue and the public hearing, that one needs to be a psychologist to understand and to be a soothsayer to see into the future to know what is likely to happen to this poor helpless soul, this loutish person and his behaviour pattern. Absolute rubbish!
As parents, we all recognise when a child is about to misbehave. Unfortunately, it is in the genes and the hormones of young people to challenge authority. We have all done it, people on the other side of the house and myself. I can assure you I have had a kick in the tail when I was a teenager from a friendly policeman with a big boot. That did me no harm whatsoever. I was moved on - moved, anyway. That police have to be psychologists and
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