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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2849 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

commission of an offence against the Tobacco Act. The evidence would be about offences such as the sale or supply of tobacco to minors, food and toys resembling or promoting tobacco, and prohibited tobacco advertising or promotion. Secondly, the authorised officer must present his or her identity card and inform the person that he or she may refuse to give consent to the authorised officer. Thirdly, the authorised officer must ask the person to sign a written acknowledgment that this procedure was followed. It is notable that these safeguards are a nod in the direction of the scrutiny Committee's concerns but ignore many of those concerns.

The scrutiny of Bills committee has commented that the power to stop and search a person should be limited to matters of "serious crime" - that is, those carrying a penalty of six months' imprisonment or more. The committee states that, in relation to this Bill, no extraordinary circumstances have been advanced to justify such a power. Further, even though the person does not have to provide information that is subject to either legal professional privilege or the privilege against self-incrimination the authorised officer is not required to so warn the person.

In any prosecution that follows the authorised officer's actions, if the authorised officer does not produce the written acknowledgment then the court must assume that consent was not given unless the contrary is proved. It would be a better safeguard for the defendant for production of the written acknowledgment to be mandatory in the same way that the roadside certificate of a breath test must be produced. If the written acknowledgment cannot be produced, the prosecution must fail.

Proposed new section 12M requires a person to give their name and address to an authorised officer who produces his or her identity card and requests the information. The scrutiny of Bills committee criticised this provision as an unnecessary extension of a police officer's power to other officials and on the basis of what will happen to the information provided. The committee seems to believe that if the section was to be drafted in the same form as section 349V of the Crimes Act and the power is exercised by an authorised officer who is also a police officer there would be no objection to the provision. It would appear from this Bill that the citizens of the ACT are to have their personal liberties impacted upon in a serious way for what are minor offences carrying fines of not more than $500. I think this is an issue that we in the Assembly must look at seriously in the context of this Bill.

I have said that we support the objective of reducing point-of-sale promotion of tobacco products and increasing point-of-sale warnings about the hazards of smoking. I have gone on at some length in this speech about some of the detailed provisions set out in the Bill and have not spoken about those aspects of the Bill which we do support. There are issues of detail that we will pursue at the detail stage, and we will be moving some amendments. I have concentrated on those aspects that raise questions that I think we need to focus on and concentrate on in debating this Bill in detail. I have not intended to give the impression that the Labor Party does not support this legislation and does not support this extent of action against point-of-sale advertising and the sale of tobacco products. Tobacco and alcohol are two substances within the community that we are fighting a long and difficult battle against as a consequence of the culture that has developed, perhaps over centuries, in relation to the consumption of those products.

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