Page 3240 - Week 11 - Thursday, 12 September 1991
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he worked out that someone must have got his set of golf clubs and, after a number of inquiries, it appeared that the only people who could have got them was the Canberra Club lot who had gone off on their bus. Well, a lot of inquiries were made and it was finally ascertained that it had to be Harry.
Now, this was a bit of a problem for the two prisoners in the lockup. The Cootamundra cells are very old and there was only a very small opening. Around dinner time it was difficult to get food into them. They managed to put some very small bananas and bits and pieces of food into the cells to feed the two poor prisoners, but they could not get anything else in.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Stefaniak, I am enjoying this; but where is the relevance?
MR STEFANIAK: It is not terribly relevant. Finally, Mr Speaker, shortly after midnight, Harry left his other function and got home. The ACT police, as they then were, managed to locate Harry and the golf clubs, telephoned their Cootamundra counterparts, and at about one in the morning two police cars left Canberra and Cootamundra respectively and met at Binalong and exchanged their respective golf clubs. Harry certainly was a great character, a very fine man and an excellent clerk of the Magistrates Court and the Court of Petty Sessions here for a long time. He was one of the great characters of the Canberra legal fraternity.
In a way, it is rather sad to see the title clerk of the Magistrates Court and the Coroner's Court cease; but progress is progress and this does bring us into line with other States. In passing, perhaps we could recognise the amount of work done by previous clerks of the Magistrates Court and Coroner's Court. Harry Taswell, of course, is one of the first and foremost among those people. We now look forward to a registrar of the Magistrates Court and the Coroner's Court, and no doubt that title will stay with us for many years.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (11.42): I do not have as interesting a story as Mr Stefaniak about police lockups or those sorts of things, but I think this issue is fairly important. Although it is only a small change to the law, it nevertheless affects the status of officials of the courts. The ACT, because of its recent experience with self-government, unfortunately has been the subject of some mirth interstate and it is important that the status of our officials is protected by changes, albeit small ones, to the law.
I guess that these officials will make contact with their interstate counterparts from time to time and it is important that their standing in the fraternity is at least equal to interstate and that the overflow from our self-government does not affect them in the performance of their
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