Page 4700 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 28 November 1990
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community as part of the community, and relations with the whole community, but particularly with young people, need to be improved.
Our concern is that this type of legislation, with its arbitrary move-on power, is damaging those efforts and creating needless conflict between police and young persons. In the incidents cited there has been violence, either actually applied or offered to be applied, and insulting or abusive language offered. That is another instance that is often cited in support of this legislation. It is said, quite properly, that ordinary citizens of Canberra are entitled to attend a restaurant or films or a theatre in the city of a Saturday evening and walk to their car or through the streets of Civic without being threatened or abused by persons in the streets. Indeed, they are entitled to have that expectation.
It is an offence to so threaten or abuse a person or act in an indecent, offensive or insulting manner, in the words of the Crimes Act. Persons so acting can be either arrested and charged or, in effect, spoken to and cautioned by police and told, as I think a policeman would say, "Listen, you blokes, if you do not stop it, if you do not clear off, I will charge you with offensive language", or whatever the matter is. In those instances, the persons being spoken to have their attention directed to precisely what it is that they are alleged to have done and have the choice. They can either accept the policeman's suggestion that they desist and clear off or stand on their digs and face being charged with a substantive offence. If they maintain that they were not doing anything wrong, they can get up before a magistrate and seek to establish that.
The problem with the move-on powers is that they are broad and arbitrary; they are so broadly encompassing that they catch a lot of people who are not engaging in unlawful activities and bring many of those people into conflict with police.
The real concern with this police report, from the Opposition's point of view, was the fact that when this report was compiled in April - I am sorry, I said "May", but it was compiled on 20 April - - -
Mr Collaery: Now you tell me. That is why I could not find it.
MR CONNOLLY: It was signed by Mr Collaery on 2 May and released to the Legislative Assembly on 2 May.
Mr Wood: Just by chance.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Collaery, just by chance, could have found it if he had looked. He clearly knows what I am talking about. At that stage, when the legislation had not been in force for that long and dealing with a reporting period between September 1989 and the end of March 1990, in excess
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