Page 3079 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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question of begging. It is a specific offence to loiter. The law does not give police arbitrary powers to move people on. Looking at the pattern in other parts of Australia, the Government would say that these laws are unnecessary. The fact that another State has passed a law which we believe to be an infringement of civil liberties and an unnecessary invasion of civil liberties does not make the law right or wrong. We go back to principle, and our principle is that you create a safer community through trust between the citizens and the police and through community policing strategies, not arbitrary police powers.
I am sure that members read with some interest the surveys of community attitudes to police that are published every six months or so by the Australian Federal Police. While we all take pride in the fact that the Australian Capital Territory region of the AFP has a general satisfaction rating in the Canberra community that hovers in the 80 to 90 per cent range - and that is far in excess of the satisfaction levels of any other State in Australia - a matter that causes me concern and, I am sure, would cause other members concern is that satisfaction levels with the Australian Federal Police are much lower in certain groups in the community. Young people are one such group. I do not want to have in place any laws that bring our police into unnecessary conflict with Canberra's young people.
We need to build bridges between our police and our young people, and you do not do that with arbitrary laws. You do not do that by creating a situation where the first point of contact many young people have with police is a direction to move on. Many young people - quite rightly, in my view - feel aggrieved. They were doing nothing wrong. They were hanging around with their mates, and they were moved on. If a young person is breaking the law, he or she should be charged and dealt with. They would have no ground for complaint. We would expect the police to charge them and deal with them. But if the police move on young people standing around talking to their mates, dressed perhaps in a manner that they think fashionable but that to many members of the community makes them look a bit rough or whatever, those young people will carry for many years, if not for life, a grievance against the police. They will say, "These people are not fair. I was standing around doing nothing and I was moved on". That is a bad experience to create as a first point of contact.
Mr Humphries: Does it happen very often in the Territory?
MR CONNOLLY: It has happened to thousands and thousands of young people. We have had thousands and thousands of young people moved on by police. If these people were committing an offence, they should have been charged with an offence; but people who have been moved on have a legitimate grievance that they were not committing an offence. A police officer might have thought they might be about to commit an offence. That is a very different thing. They were not committing an offence, but they were moved on. That is a bad situation to tolerate.
Madam Speaker, the Government has been completely consistent in its view on this legislation for some three years. We opposed it when it was first proposed. We moved to repeal it as private members in opposition. We moved to repeal it in government. We opposed its extension when its first extension was moved. We oppose its extension now. We are doing that not because, according to Liberal rhetorical fancy, we are somehow soft on crime or are anti-police.
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