Page 1427 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 17 April 1991

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

may be taken into custody by a member of the police force and detained until she or he -

I am very interested to see that we have put the feminine before the masculine in a piece of legislation -

ceases to be drunk or until the expiration of the period of 8 hours after she or he is so taken into custody, whichever first occurs.

(2) A member of the police force may search a person who is taken into custody under subsection (1) and may take possession of any personal belongings found in the possession of the person.

(3) A person is entitled to the return of any personal belongings taken from her or him under subsection (2) when she or he ceases to be detained under this section.

Mr Speaker, Mr Berry's Bill essentially replicates the existing provision in our Crimes Act, in its application in the Territory - - -

Mr Berry: No, it does not.

MR COLLAERY: There are some differences - I accept Mr Berry's interjection - but I am going to try to make a reasonable submission on this without point scoring. Mr Speaker, since the decriminalisation of drunkenness in the ACT, the police can take drunk persons to a place other than a police station. They can and often do release those persons into or to the care of someone else, or they can keep a person in protective custody at a police station for eight hours.

On that latter point, I think we all agree that in many instances a police station is neither appropriate in terms of the situation of that person nor appropriate in terms of the resourcing that goes into detaining that person who may have knowingly and recklessly got himself or herself drunk. It may simply be a social drunkenness, if I can use that term. In that case, I accept - and I am sure the house accepts - the need to look at a sobering up facility. I am happy to inform the house, and to remind the house, that as a government we have already agreed on our response to a report of the Social Policy Committee of this Assembly, and that was to support that committee's - and it was a multi-party committee - recommendation to establish proclaimed places. So, let us put it firmly on the record that our Government, before Mr Berry's Bill was introduced, committed itself to attending to that request of the Social Policy Committee.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .