Page 3089 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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MR BERRY: Mr Humphries tries to equate police powers with wages and conditions. That shows the nonsense of your logic on this issue. There were 2,500 or so youngsters moved on over the period of these move-on powers. The Liberals have not suggested that the crime rate would have risen by 2,000-odd incidents as a result of those people not being moved on, although some of the logic they seem to be using suggests that that might be the case if there were no move-on powers. The serious effect of this is that you can back it in that the majority of those 2,500 youngsters feel that they have been treated unfairly - - -
Mr Humphries: Why have they not complained?
MR BERRY: The basis of our society, as you would appreciate, Mr Humphries, is the issue of fair play. Australian society believe that they ought to be treated fairly. With this sort of legislation you argue for a policeman, essentially, to be able to declare that somebody is likely to commit a crime and is therefore guilty and should be moved on. Anybody with the surly look of sullen youth on his face would be aggrieved by any police officer who treated him that way.
Mr Humphries: When has that happened, Wayne? Has it happened?
MR BERRY: Of course it happens. You hear youngsters complain about it. Mr Humphries raised another one of his fallacies. He talked about these powers being useful to move on large groups of people. If Mr Humphries were to tell the truth to this Assembly he would talk about the way that they do apply in respect of a large group of people. My understanding is that the courts have found that the move-on powers have to be applied to individuals rather than large groups of people. They are useless for large groups of people.
Mr Humphries: Not to my knowledge.
MR BERRY: I think you will find that the magistrates have ruled in that direction. Mr Humphries talked about how useful these powers were for dealing with large groups of people. Fifty-three per cent of the cases from 6 September 1989 to 1 September 1990 were for fewer than five people.
Mr Humphries: I have not been privy to that information, Mr Berry; so I am afraid that I cannot tell you whether that is true or not.
MR BERRY: This was tabled.
Mr Connolly: This was tabled in the 1990 debate.
MR BERRY: You were here then, were you not? A document was tabled in this house in 1990, so it is public information. In 30 per cent of cases two people or less were moved on.
Mr De Domenico: What has that to do with it?
MR BERRY: It puts down Mr Humphries's argument that it has been very useful to move on large groups of people. That is a nonsense. I go back to the original point that I made on the question of how young Australians would feel, having been moved on and, most importantly, how they would feel towards the police. They would feel badly.
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