Page 2481 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 1991
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crime and street behaviour we are talking about here. They are two very different situations, as is correctly pointed out in the police report. The police report concludes, in its last paragraph:
During the nearly two years that the move-on power has been available, police have been able to quieten potential trouble areas before formal charges have had to be laid and thereby saved valuable resources (human and financial) from being tied up in the legal system.
Surely it is a most desirable piece of legislation to keep. Assistant Commissioner Bates concludes:
I recommend that the move-on power be retained.
He recommended that to his Attorney-General, Mr Connolly. Mr Speaker, since the last report there have been a number of other incidents. It is interesting to note that in the period from 1 January to 30 June this year - we had no figures on this last time because the last report, I think, was in October last year - there were some 21 situations. About 260 people were moved on and only one person arrested. It is interesting, Mr Speaker, to look at the number of people arrested in total since this legislation was introduced. Over 2,000 people were moved on and only 19 arrested. About 2,000 people have not had to appear in the court system. Many of them probably were young people. That is probably something like 1,500 or 1,600 young people - people under, say, 23 years or so - who might otherwise have gone to court for a substantive crime and would now have a substantive offence on their record. Surely this is a desirable situation in any one circumstance. Mr Speaker, as I have referred to the police report I would like to table it.
The attitude of Canberrans, Mr Speaker, is terribly important in relation to this piece of legislation. On 19 August 1989 there was an opinion poll in the Canberra Times which indicated that 70 per cent of the population supported the move-on powers. That included 58 per cent of people under the age of 25 to something like 85 per cent of people over 55. All age groups showed support for this power and, Mr Speaker, I am delighted to say that the situation has not changed.
Members who spoke to the Save the Move On Powers Committee, a couple of members of which are in court today, have been written a letter detailing the results of a survey undertaken by that committee recently. The letter indicates the various suburbs of Canberra where this survey was conducted. Some 434 persons were asked a number of questions, one of which related to the move-on powers. The committee saw me, Mr Duby, Ms Maher, Mr Collaery, Mr Jensen, Mr Stevenson, Mr Moore, Mr Connolly and Mrs Nolan. The committee was disturbed to note that one in three Canberra people indicated in the survey that they had been
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