Page 2762 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I note that during the period of this last report, 1 January to 30 June this year, the move-on powers were used in regard to 21 situations involving 260 different people, and only one arrest was made for failing to comply with a direction to move on. That is a pretty good record, it seems to me. This raises the very interesting point that the importance of these powers is not that they are used, that is, that someone is arrested for failing to move on; rather, the value in the powers is that they are threatened to be used. A group of people in a position which might constitute, at some point, a cauldron for crime, if you like, in the future can be broken up and moved away where they are less likely to be in that same position. That is the value of the power.
I note that the police go on to say that there has been a decrease in the number of offences reported against good order, such as offensive behaviour, since the introduction of the legislation. In the first reporting period, from 1 September 1988 to 31 August 1989, 12 months before that section of the Act came in, there were 159 reported offences against good order, including 48 incidents of offensive behaviour. In the following 12-month period, during the first period of the move-on powers' existence, there were only 102 reported offences against good order, including 19 incidents of offensive behaviour.
Clearly, Mr Speaker, these powers are working; and clearly the police are confident that the use of these powers can prevent crime and can provide to the citizens of this Territory the security of knowing that there is protection for them in the way in which the police conduct their work and their activities. I think, Mr Speaker, it is outrageous for the Government to suggest that they should repeal this Act because they cannot see the ideological basis for it and ignore the very good work that this power clearly is doing in the community at the present time.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (11.16): I do not intend to speak at great length, but I do want to take up a couple of points that Mr Connolly raised because I thought that his argument in favouring his own case was pretty weak. A couple of things that he said need to be commented upon. First of all, he said that the Labor Party was interested in crime prevention measures. Mr Speaker, I understood that this Bill was about crime prevention measures. It was aimed at heading off people who were seen to be misbehaving in public and stopping them before they commit a crime. If Mr Connolly were really serious about the Labor Party philosophy of crime prevention measures, he would support this Bill rather than oppose it.
He raised the question of the innocent youth who says, "I was doing nothing wrong and along came this terrible policeman who told me to move on". I do not know of any criminals who acknowledge that they did anything wrong, or there are very few of them. They are always not guilty.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .