Page 2426 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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Madam Speaker, if the Assembly now withdraws these powers by allowing the sunset clause to operate, despite the fact that under any reasonable test the police of this Territory have met these conditions, I believe that we dishonour the implicit pact that we have entered into with our police force. The fears which were expressed in previous years about the move-on powers have simply not materialised in practice, and I am not very surprised about that. Quite apart from the question of whether the powers are sufficiently closely defined to prevent that kind of abuse, we have to ask ourselves what kind of police force we have administering these powers. The answer is - and I have no hesitation in describing it thus, and I do not think any other member of this chamber should have either - that we have the best police force in the country. That quality police force has proven itself obviously capable of exercising the necessary discretion to make these powers valuable and successful.
Just how effective have the powers been? If we divide the number of people involved in these move-on situations by the number of situations which have occurred in the last four years, we see that the average size of the group - I gather from these figures that generally it is a group which has been affected by the powers - is 13; that is, on average, we have a group of 13 people being confronted or being met by a police officer and being asked to move on. If those figures are any indication, the power is not being used to push around individuals. It is not being used to say to a particular individual, "You move off this street; you get out of here" - something which might be considered to be an abuse.
In what situation a policeman would need to ask someone to move on is hard to conceive, I concede. But the power is clearly being very effectively used where a public incident is brewing, where some kind of disturbance is in the offing - for example, where some sort of fight is about to break out between, say, some young people, maybe some gangs, somewhere in a public place. A policeman who strolls into this situation on his beat can see the tension building, but he knows that it will not actually explode while he is standing there. He knows that if he moves away - - -
Ms Follett: Or she.
MR HUMPHRIES: He or she, yes. He or she knows that if he or she moves away the situation will undoubtedly result in some acts of violence, whether against people or against property; so this police officer makes a decision that he or she will say to this group, "You lot, go that way; you lot, go that way; and let us break this whole thing up". That is a power we now put in the hands of our police force, and it is a power we are going to lose from 6 September if we are not very careful. The potential situation in such circumstances is averted.
Madam Speaker, it is reasonable for us to see each of these 199 cases potentially as a situation where an arrest on a charge - for example, an assault charge, a public disturbance charge or something more serious - has been averted or where personal injury or damage to property has been averted. Each of the situations referred to in these figures represents, therefore, a saving of some kind to the Territory or to our community in some other way - for example, in the costs of our health system.
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