Page 1808 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 1 May 1991
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INTOXICATED PERSONS (CARE AND DETENTION) BILL 1991
Debate resumed from 17 April 1991, on motion by Mr Berry:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (11.28): Mr Speaker, we have already observed in this house that the Intoxicated Persons (Care and Detention) Bill has a good social intent. I have made remarks in another debate about the work that is required to bring into operation the processes that Mr Berry wants. I also note that I have had advice from informed circles - I do not wish to name those people, but I assure Mr Berry that they are people in very well-informed circles, broadly speaking, I will say, in the law - that there are some misgivings about the structures proposed in this Bill.
There is a process in the Territory - I say through you, Mr Speaker, to Mr Berry - and there is a Criminal Law Consultative Committee that sits. It is chaired by Justice Elizabeth Evatt, and matters that deal with the criminal law, or deal obliquely with it, are usually referred to that committee for advice. I think that it would be wise, Mr Speaker, if we are dealing with an effective issue that is already covered by section 351 of the Crimes Act, for us to stick to the game in this town and refer it to the Criminal Law Consultative Committee to see whether it wants to make any comments. I am happy to do that forthwith.
Mr Speaker, the Government will not pass this Bill into law today. Mr Berry has had ample explanations from me, on behalf of the Government, as to why we do not support the legislation as it presently stands. We will undertake, of course, and are already launching, our own policy proposal for the physical structure required, and our legislation program will include, and does include, this process. I do not think we are being churlish simply because Mr Berry brought something up. He has taken an effective dead copy out of section 351 of the Crimes Act and he has dished it up with some old language. I do not believe that he has given explicit instructions - if he knew how to give them - to the draftspersons who did it, and that is no reflection on the draftspersons. I know that a little bit of blame came from Mrs Grassby in that direction, but I am sure that she did not mean it in other than a jocular sense.
I think that the issues and the end product about what you seek to do have to be researched further - whether you want this to be in an Ainslie Village-type unit, whether you want this to be carried out by a non-government agency without criminal sanctions. If you could have clarified what exactly you seek to do to the draftsperson and to us, it would have been good; but at the present time you need powers to compulsorily restrain people in certain circumstances, and we need to be careful about empowering other bodies to restrain people. One effect of the Bill is that we can effectively empower other bodies to hold these
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