Page 5956 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
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attesting to having seen that person at the TAB agency and, indeed, collect winnings, as, indeed, this representation from a constituent contended. That matter is sub judice. I cannot go any further; it might identify the matter. It puts the police in a position of having to say that someone who works for the TAB, and someone who is a bookmaker, is not someone that they want to rely upon in respect of returning the money.
This Bill, introduced by the Attorney, will clarify responsibility for seized property - at clauses 42 and 43. That is very welcome, particularly to the police, who over time have had a number of complaints made to them about property that they do not return - with a lot of odious implications at times about what happened to the property and so on. The Bill also provides for search and seizure powers, and there has been some comment upon that by the Assembly's Scrutiny of Bills Committee. I am pleased to say that the Attorney has foreshadowed some amendments in that regard. So, I will not detain the house by dealing with those matters.
The role of the Public Trustee is also set out in the Bill, and in that sense it differs a little from the Commonwealth legislation. I commend the provisions that have been drafted. They protect the Public Trustee from personal liability, because people are often in a suing mood over an expropriation, and often they are, regrettably, moneyed people who are in a position to use the legal processes, which are properly available to them, to their maximum.
The duties of the Public Trustee are to hold onto the property and administer it. I think it is a good decision. I might say that, of course, this Bill had been agreed to by the Alliance Cabinet at the beginning of May, and it also favoured using the Office of the Public Trustee. The position of the Public Trustee, of course, is that the trustee should manage the property prudently and not see its value lost. I do not know what the Public Trustee would do with $1,500 worth of cherries, but I am sure that something innovative could be found. It is interesting to see that, of course, in our jurisdiction, the Public Trustee does not, on my reading of the Bill, have the power to take the ameliorating steps that a trustee can take in civil matters to anticipate loss and actually sell the cherries while they are still ripe.
So, there are some minor concerns about the seizure of perishable goods. They may include goods that are not necessarily foodstuffs. They may be other goods that deteriorate relatively rapidly. They are just individual points to try to raise our flagging spirits, having had such a solid day.
The Bill seems to comply with the two international conventions which require separate funds management of proceeds of crime. They are the Council of Europe Convention on Money Laundering, and the Group of Seven Industrialised Countries Convention addressing Confiscation
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