Page 3597 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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The Bill will impose new safeguards in relation to personal searches. The Bill recognises three different types of search to which a person can be subjected and lays down clear criteria and procedures for the conduct of these searches. The Bill classifies personal searches as "ordinary", "frisk", and "strip" searches. A search warrant issued in relation to a person may authorise only a frisk or ordinary search. Procedures for any form of personal search, either under warrant or conducted after arrest, are strictly circumscribed to ensure both the effectiveness of the search and the maintenance of the privacy and dignity of the person being searched. No searches of a person may be carried out unless the person is under arrest or a warrant to search a person has been issued. Searches must be carried out by a person of the same sex as the suspect. Detailed procedures apply, to protect the suspect's privacy and dignity, and strip searches will be carried out only if authorised by a police officer of superintendent rank or above.
The new legislation gives police a limited power to require a person to give his or her name and address. Powers to demand name and address are often criticised on civil liberties grounds. Unlike members opposite, I am acutely aware of the need to guard the rights of all people, no matter what their age or station, to go freely about the streets. Members of this Assembly will be aware of my views in my consistent opposition to the numerous calls both inside and outside this Assembly, although now the outsider is back inside, for such things as move-on powers.
In September last year Mr Humphries introduced a private members Bill to provide a power to demand names and addresses. I want to distinguish this present carefully thought out proposal from Mr Humphries's Bill on the following grounds. This power is being introduced in the context of a comprehensive review of powers of arrest. My view is that arrest should be avoided where only a minor offence is involved, and taking a name and address is necessary if police are to proceed by summons, VATAC or caution, including the new diversionary conferencing procedures, rather than by arrest. The objective is to limit the number of people taken into custody, not to increase police powers.
Police will not have a general power to ask a person's name and address. In particular, the power will not apply where police merely suspect that an offence is about to be committed. The power will be available only where police have reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed and that the person can assist with inquiries into that offence. The power will be limited to name and address. It will not require answers to be given about where a person is going or what he or she has been doing. It will be an offence to refuse or to give a false name and address, with the penalty being a fine. Because of the community policing nature of the Territory there will be no power to demand identification papers to verify name and address. This is something the Liberals are often squawking about. The citizen who is asked for his or her name and address will have a reciprocal right to demand the police officer's name and station and evidence that the officer is a police officer. The failure of a police officer to comply with this requirement is also an offence with the same penalty. Finally, the legislation provides that a police officer who requires name and address from a person will be required to record, as soon as practicable, the grounds for his or her belief that the person could assist with inquiries into an offence.
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