Page 2724 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 21 November 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR SPEAKER: Mr Collaery is not present, but he has circulated his amendment. Would you like to move that amendment, Mr Jensen?
MR JENSEN (3.36): Yes, Mr Speaker. I move:
Page 3, line 5, after "inspector" insert "in the execution of his or her duty under this Act".
I do not think I need to say anything more. I think my colleague Mr Collaery has already commented on that. Whilst I accept the comments by the Chief Minister and reference by Mr Stefaniak, we would prefer at this stage to proceed with the amendment.
MR STEFANIAK (3.37): I just want to say in relation to this, Mr Speaker, that we agree with the comments made by the Chief Minister. This particular clause deals with putting a new section 203 into the Motor Traffic Act. It applies to only the Motor Traffic Act, and both proposed amendments are quite unnecessary. I would be delighted if it did something more because I think part of our law and order policy is to enable police to ask people their names and addresses in certain circumstances, but it does not; it relates merely to the Motor Traffic Act. As the Chief Minister says, both these amendments are quite superfluous and contrary to common drafting procedure in this day and age. Accordingly, we would not be supporting them.
MS FOLLETT (Attorney-General) (3.38): I reiterate, as Mr Stefaniak says, that it appears that this kind of amendment is not necessary and that under modern drafting conventions it is unnecessary to express the kind of qualification that is in both of the proposed amendments. It is always implied that a power conferred in an Act is limited to the purposes of that Act unless an intention to create a general power is expressly stated, and it is not.
Courts, I am told, always read Acts as whole. They do not read particular provisions in isolation from their context. In addition, courts always interpret penal provisions, such as section 203, if amended as proposed, restrictively, in favour of a defendant. So the amendments, as the Government has proposed in the Bill, do not have the effect of conferring a wider power for the police to demand a person's name and address than is currently existing in subsection 203(1) of the Act.
Nevertheless, if members feel reassured by such a qualification as is proposed in the two proposed amendments, I am advised that the amendment proposed by Mr Collaery is the easier one from a drafting point of view. I will leave it at that.
MR SPEAKER: We are debating only Mr Collaery's amendment at this time.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .