Page 2722 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 21 November 1989
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Mr Duby: I hope it is without a warrant.
MR JENSEN: That is a good question, Mr Duby. I will have to check that one out. I indicate that the Residents Rally is proposing to support the Bill as presented. We have no proposals to amend or change it. We have noted the points made by Mr Duby and my colleague Mr Stefaniak. The Rally will be supporting the Bill as it is printed.
MR MOORE (3.29): Mr Speaker, I support the legislation in general terms, but in the detail stage I will draw some attention to a particular matter which is very much along the lines of move-on powers, as I read it. I have an amendment being drawn up at the moment which will resolve that problem. It has to do in particular with clause 9 of the Bill under which a person is required by a police officer to state his or her full name or residential address. There is no qualification there with reference to the Act. It was originally the case in the Motor Traffic Ordinance 1936, the one that we are amending, that it stated "in the execution of his duty under this Ordinance". Whilst we do not accept the sexist wording of that, it is appropriate that we look at that. I will be circulating an amendment when we get to the detail stage. But, with reference to the Bill as a whole, I have no particular problem with it.
MR COLLAERY (3.30): Mr Speaker, the Residents Rally supports the Bill in its present form. It provides a useful compilation of a number of scattered provisions dealing with evidence. My colleague Mr Stefaniak has probably spoken about section 352 of the Crimes Act 1900 and the need to produce those amendments and codify the law into one provision.
An essential problem that I have with the Bill is to seek an amendment to section 203 of the Motor Traffic Act. I believe that amendment has been circulated in my name. The amendment I seek is to interpolate the words "in the execution of his or her duty under this Act" after the word "inspector" on the first line of proposed section 203. It was circulated in the chamber, Mr Speaker, during the last sitting; I do not have it with me now.
The reason why I seek that amendment to the Bill is to ensure, Mr Speaker, that those words which have been dropped in the redrafting of section 203 make abundantly clear that the request by a police officer or inspector to a person should be only in the execution of his or her duty under that piece of legislation and not for anything else.
There is a legal argument that that is itself clear and that if an officer were using section 203 that officer should use the provision only in the execution of his or her duty under the Act. But that has not been made definitively clear, to my knowledge, by the courts. If there is any doubt - and it is a question of civil
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