Page 1809 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 1 May 1991
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people and, in effect, restrain them. That needs to be talked through on a consultative basis with the non-government agencies likely to carry out the task and with the Government and the police. I do not have any criticism of Mr Berry in relation to the Bill, other than that the timing of it and the preparation of the background to it are not sufficient to enable the Government to support it.
There is, on the correspondence and advice given to me, great acceptance of the principle of dealing in an informed manner with intoxicated persons. My office has had discussions with members of the Council for Civil Liberties here. They confirm that it is a straight copy of the Intoxicated Persons Act of New South Wales. I am advised that there is an unreported case in the matter. It is Alla v. Gleeson in the New South Wales Court of Appeal before Mr Justice Roden, so that must have been some time before he moved to other pastures. The legislation was intended to be a modern way of dealing with intoxicated persons. It is capable of misuse, but is accepted by the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties as an improvement on the old system. It gives police the choice of treating a person under this legislation or charging them in the usual manner.
I want to say that clearly we need more time to work through this proposal. The matter came out of the Social Policy Committee's recommendations. They were commented upon and supported by the Government. It is a simple matter in that, the way budget processes work, we need a new policy proposal to get the budget through Cabinet. We need funds to be allocated to give effect to this Bill, anyway. So, in delaying the passage of the Berry Bill, we are not necessarily in any way delaying the establishment of such a facility, and I stress that.
Mr Moore: Of course you are.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Moore interjects and says that we are delaying it. You can have any amount of legislation you like - through you, Mr Speaker - Mr Moore; but, unless you have the funds and an agency willing to do it, so be it.
You know that as Minister I have been pressing for a men's shelter of some kind in this town for a long time, long before I was in government, and following the closure by St Vincent de Paul of their shelter at Turner. ACTCOSS have some ideas in that respect, and I expect some submissions to come forward from them as a way of bringing forward a men's shelter. That will not only be related to intoxicated persons - and I am not making a sexist comment in assuming that the clientele for this service will be men, but practice shows that it is. So, that initiative that is coming out of the community right now, to create that shelter as a downtown system for people who cannot get up to Ainslie Village and are not accessing other services,
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