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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1738 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the second method of policy-making that concerns me is when we bow to pressure groups. I think it is important for pressure groups to have a place. It is very important for pressure groups to put their perspective to members of the Assembly, and policy is influenced to a certain extent by them. When we have the opportunity, as we do with 4.00 am closing, to have a look at solid, sensible research, we really must be very careful to take that into account. Mr Speaker, I have been invited by the police - I think the Minister also extended the invitation - to go out with them to have a look at the difference that 4.00 am closing made.

Mr Osborne: Why don't you?

MR MOORE: Mr Osborne says, "Why don't you?". I do not need to, Mr Osborne, because we have such a solid, sensible report that explains exactly what happens when you look at it. Going out on a personal level would add something to my own information but would present only a very small part from the perspective of police officers. They have an important perspective and - - -

Mr Osborne: Is that not good enough?

MR MOORE: "Is that not good enough?", says Mr Osborne. Of course it is not good enough. I would have thought, Mr Osborne, that you would have read this report easily enough. Mr Osborne is going to make his decisions on simply one small part of the perspective, his gut reaction, enhanced, of course, by his personal experience of going out and around with the police. It is some years since I went out with the police while they did their work around Civic. Anybody who has done that - I understand that Ms Tucker did so recently - would realise what a difficult job police have and what a great job they do while they are there. But, of course, it is also part of a single perspective. When we are making these decisions we cannot take into account just the police perspective. We have to take into account the broad range of issues that are before us.

Mr Speaker, when I supported an evaluation of 4.00 am closing I did so because I believed that members of the Assembly would read it carefully and would try to understand what the perceptions were before making a final decision on 4.00 am closing. I certainly did that and I could quote from sections of the report to indicate what it is about this report that has convinced me that we should no longer pursue that policy.

My guess is that Mr Osborne's perspective was that you run a trial so that you can get a specific outcome. I have never been involved in that game, and I do not intend to be involved in that game. If a trial provides an outcome that I disagree with, I will go with that outcome. That applies equally, I must say, to the proposed trial of heroin, if it ever gets going. If the outcome is that it does not reduce harm associated with society, I will say, "Good; let us go and have a look at some other policies for how we might approach the particular issue". I am very comfortable about putting that on the record because it seems to me that that is the only intelligent way to approach such studies.

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