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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 11 Hansard (8 December) . . Page.. 3305 ..

Mr Humphries: It is not a question of resources, Kerrie.

MS TUCKER: Well, a magistrate is a resource.

Mr Humphries: Yes, but it is not a question of a shortage of resources. They are there already. There is always a magistrate there.

MS TUCKER: Well, why does it take four hours to find a magistrate?

Mr Humphries: Because sometimes it takes time to get the person to the station to get in touch with the magistrate who is on duty. There is a magistrate rostered all the time to be on duty. To obtain the order from the magistrate, the magistrate requires further information to get back to the person.

MS TUCKER: All right.

Mr Humphries: It is not a question of resources. It is a question of organising it.

MS TUCKER: So Mr Humphries says it is not a matter of resources; it is a matter of just going through the procedures. I was under the impression that this was more necessary for weekends. Maybe I have misunderstood.

Mr Humphries: That is right.

MS TUCKER: So it is. So it is not a problem during the week?

Mr Humphries: No. They go to court during the week.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MS TUCKER: All right, so they go to court.

MR SPEAKER: Ms Tucker, make your address, please.

MS TUCKER: I am sorry; I know that was not normal process. I apologise, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Humphries will respond in due course.

MS TUCKER: It was interesting to get clarification from Mr Humphries on that. Okay. The point is, still, if this is a really worrying infringement of the rights of people, that systems could be put in place to address those concerns so that we are not put in this difficult situation where we are trying to balance the rights of an individual, the alleged perpetrator or possible perpetrator of further violence, as the scrutiny of Bills committee has done, against these really critical issues of protection of, mostly, women and children in the houses. That is the point I am making and I think it is still relevant.

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