Page 4657 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 15 December 1993
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Madam Speaker, the amendment clearly is very sensible. The prospective power is not necessary. There will be times, I think, when we may consider prospective power in regard to criminal acts. There will be times when it is appropriate, but in this case it is not necessary. It does not give the health inspectors any further power to be able to prevent a public health problem or a public health disaster. The argument presented in this house when we previously debated this Bill was clearly an exaggeration.
Mr Berry: No, it is not.
MR MOORE: I take that back following the interjection from Mr Berry that it is not. He is quite right. Problems associated with public health are always to be taken very seriously, but the powers are already in the Act. Mrs Carnell's amendment is an appropriate one and I shall be supporting it.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.16): Madam Speaker, as Mr Moore has indicated, the amendment moved by Mrs Carnell is a reasonable way of addressing a problem of giving members of the bureaucracy, whoever they might be, powers which might be considered to be unreasonably large. Members will recall that there was some debate on this question on the last sitting day. In the meantime there has been considerable discussion between members of the Government, members of the Opposition and members of the Independent benches about what practices are followed in other States.
Mr Connolly was very emphatic on the last sitting day of the Assembly to indicate that other jurisdictions of Australia follow the practices with respect to what we call future offences which the ACT Government proposes to include in the Bill. Perhaps it does not; I am not sure whether they are going to agree to this amendment or not. Certainly that was the case last week. I want to quote Mr Connolly. He said:
You did not acknowledge that it is not a case of the Government trying to introduce new draconian powers but of the Liberals wanting to remove, from public health inspection in the ACT, a power which has always existed, and which exists in every other jurisdiction. That is what you are doing tonight.
I want to place on the record, Madam Speaker, that none of those statements are true. The powers referred to in other jurisdictions for their health inspectors are very different. Let us take the Victorian legislation, their Food Bill of 1984. That empowers an authorised officer to:
... require a person found by him committing an offence against this Act or who he believes on reasonable grounds has committed an offence against this Act or whose name and address are in his opinion reasonably required to state his full name and the address of his usual place of residence and, if he suspects on reasonable grounds that a name or address so stated is false, may require him to produce evidence of the correctness thereof; ...
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