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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 972 ..

MR MOORE (11.04): I rise to support this legislation. Mr Speaker, I was surprised at Mr Humphries's interjection just then: "Where do you get that information from that this already happens?". In the penultimate sentence in Mr Humphries's speech he said:

The proposed amendment will make explicit what is already an implicit element of the sentencing process.

In the paragraph prior to that he said:

That restates the common law, and most Australian jurisdictions have similar provisions.

That having been said, Mr Speaker, I support the legislation. In doing so, I must say that my concern when I initially read the legislation was that we would see additional police powers. Wherever I see a situation of additional police powers I look at them very carefully, and my general approach is to say, "No; we ought to ensure that we are not having a creeping increase in police powers". In this case, Mr Speaker, clauses 4, 5, 6 and 7, I think, are quite desirable and provide for a quite rational way for police officers to operate. I think it is appropriate that they have the protection of legislation when they are acting in a sensible way to carry out what I would consider normal police duties. Indeed, that is what the Minister has brought to the Assembly.

I think it is quite amusing, Mr Speaker, that up to now a search could be carried out of an overcoat, coat, jacket, gloves, shoes and hat, but not of the socks. That is a quite strange anomaly and one wonders how we got legislation through that would leave that out. Will the Minister come back and talk about singlets next, or some other form of clothing? Silk boxer shorts, which are growing in popularity, might well be the next move. Mr Speaker, I think this Bill is a sensible approach to ensure that police officers can carry out their duties in an appropriate way, with their own safety considerations in mind as well as the safety of an individual prisoner and the prisoners around them. I will be supporting the Bill.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (11.06), in reply: I thank members for their support for this Bill. To take the latter point made by Mr Moore first, I am sure, as he has indicated, he can see that extending the power to remove clothing to socks is not a particularly egregious extension of police powers, and I do not think the Civil Liberties Council will be on our backs about this particular one. I gather that at some point, somewhere, some police officer has encountered some problem from the omission of this reference to socks in the legislation. Therefore, it falls on the Assembly to devote a small amount of its busy day to rectify that omission and to insert "socks" into its rightful place in the Crimes Act.

Mr Speaker, I note Mr Wood's comments about the legislation. He did not touch on the question of the police powers at all but talked about the sentencing policy issue. He described the reasons given for wanting to provide for a discount for an early plea as being very bad reasons. I have to confess that, although I have supported those reasons,

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