Page 3156 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 11 September 1991
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this Territory are dealt with in the Magistrates Court, there is, nevertheless, an incompleteness in our laws at Supreme Court level which needs to be attended to in due course.
I again remind the house that I foreshadow amendments to the Crimes (Amendment) Bill to make it equate to the Magistrates Court (Amendment) Bill. At this juncture, I wish to thank the parliamentary draftsperson, Mr John Christensen, who has helped me so fully and so swiftly with these urgent amendments. Mr Speaker, I commend the Bill to the house.
Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned.
LIQUOR (AMENDMENT) BILL 1991
MR STEFANIAK (11.03): Mr Speaker, I present the Liquor (Amendment) Bill 1991. I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
About 20 years ago, in the ACT, as in every State and Territory in Australia, drinking was banned in any public place. That, of course, did not mean that no-one could drink in a public place; it was a law which was sensibly used by our very fine police force.
Of course, the history of family barbecues in the ACT goes back a long way and everyone enjoys a drink out at the Cotter or in a park at a barbecue. Of course, that is not the type of trouble that the police are trying to prevent, because there is no trouble there. So, some of the mindless criticism of this Bill, suggesting that it will prevent the old family barbecue where a few bottles of wine and cans are consumed in a public place, is absolute nonsense.
Mr Connolly: It will be illegal.
MR STEFANIAK: It will not be illegal, and I will explain why when we look at the Bill in a minute. However, in the 1970s, we had an Attorney-General called Kep Enderby who changed a lot of laws. I think that one such law related to this matter. The liquor laws of the ACT were freed up and the ACT consequently ended up with people being able to drink anywhere, in any public place, without any restrictions.
This led to a number of problems, and there are a number of specific problems around specific areas which keep coming up year after year. It is something that the Australian Federal Police have been on about throughout the 1980s, and one of about three major points that they have been pressing for with successive Federal Labor governments, and indeed this local government, over the last five or six years.
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