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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 2582 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

will not be conducting searches except in a very small number of cases. It is not reasonable to expect that we can search people randomly and at the same time have a reasonable suspicion that they are in possession of prohibited items.

It has nothing to do with police versus authorised persons. This applies to authorised people. It has nothing to do with whether the police exercise power or not. It is a question of whether authorised people, whether they are police or not police, can conduct a search except where they believe there is a prohibited item on a person's body or in a person's possession. If we have the power as amended by Mr Stanhope, we will not see many searches conducted, and the present plans to search all people who enter the premises will have to be radically rethought.

Ms Tucker has pointed out that people pass through a metal detector. That is quite true. If a person passing through the metal detector causes it to beep, then there is a reasonable suspicion, I suppose-I am not sure whether it is necessarily the case but you might argue that it is-for believing that the person possesses a prohibited item. I do not know whether that necessarily follows, but presumably you could tenuously make a connection there.

As members have already heard, there are lots of prohibited items which are not metal and will not show up on a metal detector. The only way of detecting those items is by doing a search of a bag. Without this power, a bag will not be able to be searched unless there is a reasonable suspicion that someone is carrying a prohibited item. Mr Speaker, that will be a very rare occurrence. Let us be clear. If we pass amendments Nos 1 and 2, we will effectively prevent random searches of people entering the Olympic venue. That is a very serious step down from the level of security which it has been planned, up until now, to provide at the Olympic venue.

MR KAINE (5.21): Mr Speaker, I am not certain that the minister has justified the government's position on this issue. I do not know how a police officer determines whom he is going to search and whom he is not, and I do not really care much. But whatever method he uses, I do not believe he or she ought to be allowed to body search somebody without reasonable excuse-just pick someone out of the crowd and say, "Hey, you" and then be allowed to ask them their name and address. For "ask" read "demand", because they will then become subject to a fine of $500 if, without reasonable excuse, they do not give somebody their name and address.

Somebody wearing civilian clothes steps out of a crowd and says, "Hey, you. I want to have a look at your bags" or "I want to search your body." The bloke says, "Hang on a bit. I'm just Joe Blow with my sambo in my bag. I'm just here to see the games." Regardless of that, the plain clothes person says, "Do you refuse to allow me to search? What is your name and address?" The bloke says, "Don't want to tell you, mate." For that he is going to be fined $500? Is this reasonable? Is anybody in this room going to tell me that that is reasonable? Is the minister going to tell me that that is reasonable? I do not think it is.

It is up to the security people to determine how they are going to deal with this situation. They have to deal with it within the context of the legislation we are prepared to pass, not what SOCOG says we must have. I am not interested in what SOCOG says. They are not the government of the territory. Whatever legislation we pass, in whatever form we

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