Page 4699 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 28 November 1990
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Mr Speaker, what I am saying to those Government members who do not listen or perhaps do not understand is that there have been pre-existing provisions in the law, which cover the situation and which should make the streets of Canberra as safe as possible for citizens.
Mr Stefaniak: Unfortunately, they do not, Terry.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Stefaniak says, "Unfortunately, they do not". That is true; the streets of Canberra are not perfectly safe, nor are the streets of any city or country town, nor are they any safer with this law in place. In our view, there are a number of incidents in which a young person may be with a group of people emerging from licensed premises, from a disco, and there is a fight or some activity on in the street. A person having no connection with that, not indulging in any illegal or threatening behaviour, may view the melee. Police arrive and the young person is moved on. That young person who was doing nothing illegal will carry for many years resentment at a police officer ordering him or her to move on when, in his or her view, he or she has done nothing. That brings the youth into unnecessary conflict with the police.
Mr Collaery: Produce the evidence.
MR CONNOLLY: The first prosecution for failure to move on was dropped. It involved the son of a former member of this place. In the public statements made by the person concerned and by his father, the position of the person charged was that he was in exactly that situation. He had been drinking in licensed premises in Civic. It was 3 o'clock or thereabouts in the morning. The individual concerned was a young person and was perhaps dressed in a manner that Mr Speaker would rule out of order if we came into this Assembly so attired. Perhaps he looked to a police officer like someone who might cause trouble, whatever that means in the discretion of a police officer. This person was ordered to move on, and he took great offence at that. He took the view that he had been doing nothing illegal, which indeed he had not, in my submission. He resented the fact that he had been ordered to move on. He took that as an arbitrary use of police power. That sort of thing can occur repeatedly with this type of legislation.
It is apparent - I think there would be agreement across the chamber - that one of the biggest problems that the police confront in dealing with urban crime is establishing a proper relationship with young persons. The Federal Police is certainly working hard on that, and we in the Opposition broadly support the initiatives that have been taken by the Federal Police in the last couple of years to move its focus to community policing rather than the apparently isolated police officer patrolling in a car and being seen to be cut away from the community. The Federal Police is well aware that if it is to make Canberra a safer place in which to live the police have to be seen by the
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