Page 2775 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 1991
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I would like you to try and imagine the terrible feeling of helplessness we feel as a police family when it was because of their hands being tied that our son lost his life. How are you going to feel if you take this move-on power away from our police force and another two families have to go through what the family of the boy who killed Grant and our family have had to live with. Perhaps it may be a member of your family or someone you know. When Grant was killed there was a public outcry when the public realised their police could do nothing in such a situation. Do we have to have a repeat of this incident to convince you to allow the police to have the powers they need. In The Canberra Times survey of 19 August 1989 70 per cent of the people supported police having move-on powers ...
I believe responsible parents would prefer that their child be moved on from a potential problem rather than end up in court and possibly with a record.
I know there are people in the community who stress civil rights. Where were Grant's civil rights on that fateful day? Surely the majority of the people also have civil rights. The right to be able to go out about our fair city as they wish, without the fear of groups of misbehaving people.
It would be easy for us to give up and stop fighting for this but we know at first hand what it is like to lose someone so very dear as Grant was to us. Please don't let it happen again, it is in your hands.
MR MOORE (12.00): We all received the letter that Mr Stevenson has read out and it is a very moving account of somebody who is involved so closely. Of course, when somebody is involved so closely it is very difficult to step back and take a logical and rational view of it. That is quite understandable; and that is how it should be. Like, I imagine, everybody else here, I was very moved by the letter; but it is not necessarily the case that the solution to the problem lies with police move-on powers.
In the debate in this Assembly in August 1989, when I spoke on this very matter I commented:
I hope that this Bill will fill a small gap while the Social Policy Committee finds the appropriate solutions.
I said that because that is where the appropriate solutions lie.
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