Page 4697 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 28 November 1990
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In addition, section 351 was inserted in the Crimes Act, which effectively provides for detention of drunken persons who, in a public place, are behaving in a disorderly manner, behaving in a manner likely to cause injury to themselves or to another person or damage to property, or are incapacitated due to their being drunk and in need of physical protection.
Mr Speaker, these pre-existing provisions in the Crimes Act should provide a legal basis for effective policing in each of the circumstances cited in the Australian Federal Police review of the use of the move-on powers. When confronted with potential trouble in the circumstances set out in annex E, the police can use those offences either to make an arrest or to caution persons that, unless they desist, an arrest will be made. That latter proper exercise of police discretion is, in our view, the best way of avoiding trouble.
In effect, the policeman says - I will paraphrase the words that a policeman would be likely to use - "Listen, you blokes, if you do not clear off, we are going to have to charge you". That exercise of discretionary policing has been used traditionally in the ACT and in all other States to deal with situations of potential trouble.
Mr Speaker, I want to go briefly through some of the examples cited in the Federal Police report and instance how these could have been dealt with without the use of the move-on powers to achieve broadly the same result. Let us look at the second example cited in annex E of the police report. There was an incident on 13 November 1989 at 7 o'clock in the morning at Garema Place in the city, outside licensed premises. Fifteen to 20 persons were present. The police report says:
Police were called to a disturbance and one person was taken into custody. As police were conveying this person away, the remainder of the persons in the area commenced exchanging verbal threats between themselves, and towards police. Police had an apprehension that further violence would occur. The persons were directed to move-on. They dispersed without further incident.
There we have an incident in which people were making verbal threats to police. That in itself is an offence covered by the Crimes Act. The police had the discretion either to arrest the person or to say, as I said, "Listen, you blokes, cut it out. Clear off or I will be forced to arrest you". They would have dispersed in that manner without the need for any further action.
Another example was on 13 January 1990 at Mawson. Eight persons were present, again at 7 o'clock in the morning. As Mr Stefaniak noted, most of these instances in which the move-on powers have been used occur in the early hours of the morning.
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