Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .
Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 2576 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
carefully consulting about the legislation. If members do not like that, I suspect that they really have a beef not with the ACT government but with the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Clause 9.
MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (4.56): I move:
No 1-
Page 5, line 12, subclause (1), after "personal property", insert "if the authorised person has reasonable grounds for believing that the person possesses a prohibited item".
This is amendment No 1 circulated in my name. My amendments No 1 and No 2 insert a provision that a search of property or person cannot occur unless the authorised person conducting the search has reasonable grounds for believing that the person being searched is in possession of a prohibited item. In discussions my office held with Superintendent Alan Castle, the officer in charge of Olympic security, he indicated that he had no objection to this amendment.
It is a reasonable amendment that ensures that an authorised officer cannot conduct searches on a whim. As has been indicated in the course of the debate, we are debating quite significant and serious powers that we are vesting in authorised officers. I have already expressed the view that I believe these powers should be exercised only by a police officer. I believe police officers have the appropriate and necessary training and experience to recognise when it is appropriate to search a person, and they know how to conduct that search.
We are also talking about a frisk search, a body search. As I have indicated, I think it reasonable that that sort of potentially invasive search should be conducted only by police officers, people we provide with specific training and who have specific expertise in dealing with people, searching people and conducting searches in an appropriate way. It is accepted that other officers will assist the police in these duties, but when it comes to the need to identify a person that in anybody's opinion should be searched to see whether or not they have on their person a prohibited item, it seems to me that the only person we should entrust with that power and that judgment in a member of the police force. A member of the police force needs to identify the person and a member of the police force needs to exercise reasonable judgment about whether or not a search should be undertaken.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .