Page 4323 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 30 November 1994
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We think it is a good thing that police have discretion and we are reluctant to remove this discretion. A good reason for that, and perhaps the clearest reason, is in the case of its application to plants. We have set the line in the sand at five plants. Five plants could be very clearly for a person's own consumption; or, with careful horticulture and the appropriate snipping of the buds and fertiliser and all the rest of it, five plants could well be - - -
Mr Moore: A hedge.
MR CONNOLLY: Not quite, but almost reaching to the roof of this chamber. So, there could well be a situation where a person who had grown their five plants was in a position to keep themselves pretty much out of it for a very long period of time; or, alternatively, engage in a fairly high level of trafficking of the substance. That is the extreme case; but there should be a discretion, we think, to allow the police to decide what they will do.
The other matter, and this certainly does occur from time to time, arises where police are investigating other crimes. This most commonly seems to occur where police are attending premises to execute warrants to search for stolen property or the like and, as they are going about those duties, cannabis is detected. Police will often then proceed down the ordinary criminal charge process, so that when the person is brought before court for the raft of criminal charges this is another criminal charge that is there. I do not think there is any evidence to suggest that police have abused the discretion. If there were evidence to suggest that police have been harsh or unreasonable in exercising their discretion to issue the on-the-spot fine or charge, the Government certainly would be happy to review Mr Moore's proposal in the future, but at the moment there is not. Indeed, there is evidence that they not only exercise the discretion properly but also exercise properly the discretion not to charge at all and simply to caution. Certainly, the Government is confident that the police are properly exercising the discretion, and we will not be supporting the amendment.
The second matter Mr Moore raises is the apparent anomaly in the legislative package, as we got it, in that the charge of self-administering cannabis is not covered by the on-the-spot fine, whereas other charges relating to possession or cultivation are. Indeed, Mr Moore is quite accurate in pointing out that that is an anomaly. I am sure that, had we thought about that carefully at the time we put through the original package, we would have picked it up; but we did not. So, the Government will certainly be supporting Mr Moore's amendment in subparagraph (d) of clause 4 of his amending Bill, to include self-administration in the definition of "simple cannabis offence". If anyone thinks about it, if we are going to go down the simple offence path we should include administration with possession.
The third measure Mr Moore proposes is to substantially reduce the penalty that is included under the on-the-spot fine provision. The penalty at the moment is $100. Mr Moore is proposing to drop that to $40. It is true that in South Australia the on-the-spot fine penalty is lower than in the ACT, but when the original package went
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