Page 1813 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 1 May 1991
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Therefore, Mr Speaker, it seems to me that the very good intention of Mr Berry's Bill is being delayed by this Government - not on the grounds of what the Bill might achieve, but on the grounds of political kudos: "We do not want the Opposition to come up with a Bill that might be useful to the community and might be seen to be compassionate and might be seen to be a useful and appropriate way of dealing with intoxicated persons. We want to be the ones to do it. Therefore, we will not allow you to come up with your Bill; we will not propose any variations; we will not propose any amendments to it. Instead, we will put it aside while we get our Law Office to put it on our program and come up with a Bill some time in the near future". In the meantime, the methods we have for dealing with intoxicated people are really entirely inappropriate.
One of the issues, of course, that concern me is clause 4 subclause (3), "the prescribed place". A police station may be declared a prescribed place. A police station, of course, is, in effect - as I understand it - the current method of detaining people, and it is what we should be attempting to avoid. The reality of the matter is, of course, that we certainly need to have a backup system. There are times in the ACT like the Food and Wine Frolic when there are a large number of intoxicated people and, by and large, although they seem to be able to be dealt with very well by the police and the police seem to be able to manage them in an appropriate way, one can foresee the possibility that the prescribed places that are set out under clause 4 of this Bill may not have enough facilities to be able to take the number of people. Therefore, as a backup system, and as a backup system only, it is quite appropriate for the police station to be used.
The emphasis of this Bill and the emphasis of the Assembly as a whole should be to ensure that intoxicated people are detained in a way that can be helpful for them, rather than in a way that is threatening. And that is the emphasis of the Bill. It will not resolve the problems of people who have a problem with alcohol, apart from those who are intoxicated only rarely, because, of course, that does happen. In the majority of cases people who are dependent upon alcohol find that they are intoxicated again and again. Under those circumstances, people clearly need to be provided with assistance rather than, if you like, the force of the law. That is the situation that Mr Berry is providing for.
Our attitude in this society to intoxicated people is becoming less and less tolerant - not so much to the actual people themselves, as to the fact that we consider that inappropriate behaviour. It is inappropriate, and I notice more and more that in my circle of friends - at parties and so forth - less alcohol is being consumed. No doubt that has something to do with my age group and the fact that many of my friends have young children and are going to have to be up early the next morning, therefore they are less likely to overimbibe.
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