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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 982 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Mr Speaker, these laws are dumb laws. They are dumb laws, they are draconian laws, and they will not get to the nub of the problem. Nothing the Government has raised in its argument demonstrates that these laws were successful in the past. All they proved in the past was that they could be abused. Moving 2,600 people on is not a demonstration that these laws were successful. In fact, for all we know, that could demonstrate that there were hundreds upon hundreds of people who were moved on unfairly. If they were, in fact, people who were about to be involved in violence to or intimidation of a person or damage to property, I wonder why it is so safe out there now.

Mr Hargreaves: They should have been arrested.

MR BERRY: They should have been arrested. I wonder why it is so safe out there now, if those 2,600 people are going free all the time and not being moved on.

Mr Rugendyke: Ask Eddie Amsteins. He knows.

MR BERRY: Mr Rugendyke, in a very cheap interjection, tries to create the impression that serious crimes in the past may have been prevented if police had move-on powers. I do not think so. They would not have been, and you cannot - - -

Mr Rugendyke: They certainly may have been.

MR BERRY: They would not have been, and you know it. You know better than that. Do not wheel that tripe up in here. The fact of the matter is that these move-on powers will just make police feel better, but they will not improve law enforcement in the community. In fact, in the long run they will make the police officers' job harder because they will alienate themselves from the community even more. If they are moving on 2,600 people every couple of years, a large proportion of those 2,600 people each couple of years are going to have a gripe with the police.

If that is the sort of situation you want to create, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. What you should be doing is creating a situation where police can get on with the community, rather than having a situation where police draw a line in the sand and dare people to put a toe over it, because young people - and it will be mostly young people that will be affected by this - will always put a toe over it. That is what the development of the human being is all about. It is about occasionally challenging the system; but it is not about putting police in a position where they might feel comfortable with the laws, at the loss of civil liberties to ordinary people out there in the community.

I saw these laws off once before and I will see them off again if they are introduced in this place because, in the end, goodness will prevail, a fair view of a police officer's role will prevail, and these laws will disappear. The ignorant approach to law enforcement that has been taken in relation to these powers will not advance our society one jot. I say again that the policeman's role is not an easy one and I understand and support his need to have a safe workplace and, of course, his right to contribute to sensible law enforcement measures. But sometimes you have to take into account, whether you like it or not,

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