Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 905 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

which makes the difficulty of screening all visitors all the more extreme. But, in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics, all Ministers supported advice from the Commonwealth that the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs is refining its information access and sharing facilities and developing closer working relationships with Australian law enforcement agencies.

The council resolved, with some exceptions, to support the inclusion of capsicum spray as a prohibited import, along with other self-protecting disabling substances, except for official police use, and to support the prohibition of the manufacture, distribution, sale, purchase, possession, carriage or use of capsicum spray or other instruments designed to emit offensive, noxious or toxic substances aimed at disabling or causing harm to another person. I am pleased, Mr Speaker, to advise the Assembly that all such substances are banned in the ACT under the Prohibited Weapons Act 1996, but that new substances which emerge can easily be banned by regulation under that Act. The meeting also discussed a proposal from the New South Wales Government to develop a coordinated response to antisocial behaviour at major sporting events. The meeting undertook to assess the feasibility of proposals brought forward by New South Wales within our own jurisdictions and report back to the next meeting in November. I will be writing to the chair of the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety in the near future seeking some consideration of this issue.

Finally, Mr Speaker, the council considered the issue of training standards for police in the use of firearms. The National Police Research Unit has developed a draft paper for police services on the development of national minimum guidelines for incident management, conflict resolution and the use of force. The council endorsed the direction of that paper and its recommendations and asked police commissioners to report back to future meetings of the Australasian Police Ministers Council on a process to monitor the implementation and success of the recommendations, as well as further developments toward best practice in incident management, conflict resolution and the use of force. Mr Speaker, this is a very important issue of significant concern to the Australian community. In recent times, police have been forced to use firearms in a large number of instances and the training standards of police in alternative methods of incident resolution have been called into question. At a political level, it would be highly inappropriate to comment on, or speculate as to the reasons for, the use of force in individual cases. But we have a responsibility to ensure that police are equipped, not just physically, but also mentally, to resolve incidents without the use of lethal force whenever that is possible. In training police how to use guns, it is just as important to train them in how not to use a gun. The development of national best practice training standards for all police, based on experiences here and overseas, is of critical importance.

I was pleased to receive strong support on this proposal from the Commonwealth, although it was disappointing that some States saw their own standards as best practice already, even though clearly a problem exists based on the high number of incidents. The protection of the community from lethal force whenever an alternative is available is a paramount objective of this resolution and I am pleased that it will receive the necessary level of support to enable the issue to be viewed seriously by all governments. Even last night, Mr Speaker, Canberra's police officers were faced with a dangerous siege which was resolved without the lethal use of force by deploying the specialist teams which the AFP train extensively to manage conflict and incidents of this nature. Once again,

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .