Page 2752 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Kaine: Do you think police power to arrest is not arbitrary?
MR CONNOLLY: Of course it is not arbitrary. The police have power to arrest a person for specific offences.
Mr Kaine: It is not? A policeman comes along and slaps an arm on your shoulder and says, "You are under arrest", and that is not arbitrary?
MR CONNOLLY: This is an extraordinary view of the world from the former Chief Minister. He seems to think that the police have power to go around arresting anyone for anything at any time. They obviously do not. I assume that the former Attorney-General did not share these views when he was the Minister responsible for the police.
Mr Kaine: Whacking a random breath test on you is not arbitrary?
MR CONNOLLY: That is a random matter. There is an arbitrary power to pull a person over for public safety reasons, which is supported generally. You know why you are being pulled over and there is no arbitrary nature to whether or not you are charged. You are charged if you exceed a prescribed concentration of alcohol in your blood. The problem with the move-on power as it is perceived by young people particularly - and it is overwhelmingly used against young people; there can be no argument about that - is that young people perceive this as a power which can be directed against persons who conform to different social norms from authority figures - the Australian Federal Police, politicians, "respectable" Canberrans. If we want to have a community where young people are part of the community and where we are actually achieving something in terms of reducing offences, I do not believe that it assists to equip police with a power that is seen by those people as being arbitrary.
It is well known - it is in the public domain - that the son of Mr Paul Whalan, a former Deputy Chief Minister, was the first person charged with refusing to move on. Mr Whalan's son vehemently asserted his innocence. He vehemently asserted that he was merely at a nightspot in Canberra lawfully conducting himself in a social situation. At the end of the day, those charges were dropped, but Mr Whalan junior continued to be dissatisfied. He continued to assert vehemently that his conduct was in no way criminal and in no way should have attracted police attention. He made formal complaints immediately through the investigative procedures to the Ombudsman's office.
I believe that when these powers were first being debated and a fear was raised by Labor members that they could be misused, it was always said, "There is adequate protection there. If a person feels that the powers are being misused, there is a statutory mechanism for police complaints to be introduced". Mr Whalan has advised me
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .