Page 3075 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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MR LAMONT: Madam Speaker, I rise pursuant to standing order 46 in relation to a number of comments made in the presentation speech.
MADAM SPEAKER: You have my leave to proceed, Mr Lamont.
MR LAMONT: Thank you. I believe that it is important that I speak now rather than wait for the detail stage of the Bill. It was suggested by Mr Humphries that the Legal Affairs Committee - which at the time I was a member of, along with Ms Szuty, under the stewardship of Mr Humphries - had come to a particular conclusion. Mr Humphries then proceeded to outline the basis of that conclusion. The suggestion by Mr Humphries that that was tantamount to supporting his Bill is flawed. That is not in fact the case. That was not the reason, in my view, why the position was supported.
MADAM SPEAKER: This is a personal explanation. Confine your remarks to a personal explanation.
MR LAMONT: The position that was adopted by the committee, in my understanding, was that when an offence had been alleged by a police officer it was appropriate to go through a particular procedure. We were talking about summary offences. What Mr Humphries has alleged here this morning is erroneous. He attributed to the committee a conclusion in respect of a matter that the committee did not in fact deliberate on.
Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned.
POLICE OFFENCES (AMENDMENT) BILL 1993
Debate resumed from 18 August 1993, on motion by Mr Humphries:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (10.55): Madam Speaker, the Government's position on police move-on powers has not altered in the three years or so that they have been an issue of public debate in the Australian Capital Territory. The Labor Party, whether in government or in opposition, does not believe that there should be arbitrary law on the statute books in the Australian Capital Territory that gives police officers extraordinary powers to interfere with the rights of citizens who have committed no crime. We believe that building a safer community is about better relations between the police and the community; it is not about arbitrary powers.
Independent members who may have been agonising over this issue over recent weeks may have cause to ponder on just what the Liberal Party's approach to civil liberties is, having heard Mr Humphries's extraordinary speech minutes ago. This approach of arbitrary power, prevention being better than cure, preventive powers - I interjected on Mr Humphries that preventive detention seemed not very far off under the Liberals' approach - is a retrograde way to deal with problems of crime in a community. The simple way to deal with housebreaking
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