Page 3822 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 8 November 1994
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his notebook, "There was fighting taking place, and I believed that an assault occasioning actual bodily harm had occurred. Therefore, the following people were involved in an indictable offence: Fred Bloggs, et cetera". So, I think that would be the circumstance of an indictable offence. Exactly the same thing could be applied to the situation around the corner. The police officer could say, "I believed that these people were fighting. Therefore, we took the names and addresses of the following people ...". I do not think it is particularly onerous. Therefore, the safeguard that you have in there is, to my way of thinking, an inadequate safeguard. Madam Speaker, I made most of the points that I wanted to make in the in-principle stage of the Bill. I commend the amendment to the Assembly.
MR HUMPHRIES (5.41): Madam Speaker, I am sure that it will come as no surprise that I have to indicate to Mr Moore that the Opposition will be opposing the amendment. I am sure that he is going to rush out and do something vile to himself. I might indicate that I think it is too much to expect of police officers that they be able to juggle the question of whether an offence is summary or indictable as they as considering whether to apply the law. I also make the point that I think Mr Moore grossly exaggerates the extent to which this provision is a great erosion of the civil liberties of a citizen. I, for one, cannot imagine why I would wish to refuse to give my name and address to somebody who wore the uniform of the Federal Police. I have sufficient faith in that institution in this Territory to believe that that is not a process which greatly endangers my civil liberties or constitutes a great threat to anything that I might wish to do, on the basis of going about my lawful business in this Territory. If you happen to not want the police to know where you live, for some reason, it seems to me that you might not want this provision to pass as it stands; but I, for one, cannot see any reason why law-abiding citizens should have anything to fear from provisions such as this.
However, I might just throw the cat among the pigeons by making reference to the fact that, apparently, the Federal legislation on which this is modelled does not give police the power to demand name and address where they believe, on reasonable grounds, that a summary offence has occurred. There is probably a good reason for that. Federal legislation is dealing generally with indictable offences anyway; so there is not a particular reason for it to be summary. It seems to me that the delineation is entirely arbitrary. I think it is incumbent on you, Mr Moore, as one of the people who, I recall, joined in the chorus about the police state, to find some more substantial difference in this legislation than the one example that you have found here.
If I gave you a list of offences in the Crimes Act, I do not think you could name what were indictable offences and what were summary offences, because most people would not know those distinctions in most cases. You would know that murder was indictable and jaywalking was summary; but, apart from that, there are a great many grey areas.
Mr Moore: We would know whether it was a serious offence or not a serious offence.
MR HUMPHRIES: Even that is a slightly arbitrary distinction. Sometimes those distinctions are not as clear as they might appear, to the layman, to be. Madam Speaker, I will not support Mr Moore's amendment. I did want to make brief reference to the comment about proposed section 349ZX. That might not be a car; but proposed section 349ZZA must certainly be named after a police car!
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