Page 3074 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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Members opposite find that very funny; but, Madam Speaker, I think it is a matter of serious concern. There should be no difference. A person's capacity to assist a police officer should not be determined by whether they happen to be sitting in a motor vehicle or not. There is an even more onerous provision in the Motor Traffic Act. I quote section 174:
The owner or driver or any agent or employee of the owner of a motor vehicle, or any passenger in a motor vehicle who, upon being required by any inspector, any officer in the execution of his duty or by a member of the Police Force, to give any information which it is in his power to give and which may lead to the identification of any person who was driving the vehicle when an offence against this Act was alleged to have been committed, fails or refuses to give this information, shall be guilty of an offence.
Mr Lamont: An offence has been committed.
MR HUMPHRIES: No. You did not listen, Mr Lamont. It states:
... to give any information which it is in his power to give and which may lead to the identification of any person who was driving the vehicle when an offence against this Act was alleged ...
Madam Speaker, clearly this power is analogous to the power I am proposing to create in the ACT now. The $2,000 fine imposed by those two provisions of the Motor Traffic Act, sections 172 and 174, is an ample precedent for creating a much simpler offence with a fine of only $40 in respect of this particular matter I am bringing forward. At present the only way a suspect may be required to give his or her name and address to the police is by that police officer arresting that person. That is confrontationist and is unnecessary.
The implementation of this power would prevent police having to arrest individuals on reasonable suspicion of having committed a crime, simply to extract their name and address. Madam Speaker, if members in this chamber imagine that there are not many occasions when persons are arrested purely in order for police to be able to obtain their name and address, then they are sadly deceived, because it does happen at the present time. It is necessary for police to do that at the present time, because they have no other way of getting access to what, for them, may be vital information in the course of investigating crime. In the interests of ensuring that the law is used responsibly, a police officer shall be required to inform an individual that it is an offence not to comply with that direction. Similarly, if a person is directed to comply, that person shall be entitled to ask a police officer for his or her name, rank and badge number; so it cuts both ways.
This is a sensible power to be used to prevent the police having to charge a person simply to find out their name and address. Combined with other powers that we have discussed in this place and that we will discuss this morning, it is capable of delivering to the police of this Territory a range of powers that will prevent crime occurring. We are not interested solely in coming down on people like tons of bricks once crimes have been committed. That is a responsive, reactive approach to policing which we simply cannot use as the sole basis on which to proceed to deal with crime. We believe that, in addition to that, there need to be means to prevent crimes occurring in the first place. Measures such as this assist in that process. I commend the Bill to the house.
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