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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 2699 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

It is interesting and perhaps relevant to the debate to note that, whilst a knife is defined as a knife blade, a razor blade or any other blade, the Macquarie Dictionary definition of a knife, which I think is relevant to refer to in order to make some sense of the provision in the Crimes Act, is:

I think that those definitions mean-I do not know whether the Attorney's department has looked at this issue-that it is probably an offence to sell, say, razor blades to a boy or a girl under the age of 16, whether or not they are at shaving age, for the purpose of shaving and I think that it is probably an offence to sell to a boy or girl under the age of 16 craft implements, such as leather or wood engraving tools for use at school, or potentially even scissors or other implements that children would use at school.

I make those comments basically to reflect a concern that I have always had about this sort of law-making and this sort of provision once we actually get away from the offensive weapon and into a specific prohibition, say, in relation to knives. I know the evil that we are seeking to address here, namely, the evil of kids in particular carrying knives around and thinking that they are tough. We do need to stop that. It was on that basis primarily that the Labor Party supported the amendments when they came before us, but it was with some disquiet. The disquiet went to this difficulty of definition.

But what we are discussing here is a proposal that retailers display in the immediate vicinity of a knife for sale a sign of not less than 210 millimetres by 145 millimetres which states in writing that it is an offence to sell a knife to a person under the age of 16 years. I have had a brief discussion with Mr Rugendyke about an amendment which I will move in a minute. I accept the sense of having a sign, and the Attorney has indicated that the Liberal Party also does. I was concerned, however, by that part of Mr Rugendyke's bill which says that the sign must be displayed in the immediate vicinity of each place where knives are displayed for sale.

I think that on a reasonable reading of the definition of "knife" that is included within the Crimes Act it is potentially the case that a major store such as Kmart would have to erect 50, 60 or more signs if you went through every part of Kmart that sells a knife as defined in both the Oxford and Macquarie dictionaries. Even a suburban supermarket might be required to erect 20 or so signs, one at the razor blades, one at the scissors, one at the hardware down the back, one for the bread and butter knives, one for the carving knives, one for the secateurs and so on.

I am proposing and I will move in due course an amendment to provide that, in fact, the sign is to be erected at the point of sale. There really does need to be only the one sign at the point of sale and that does achieve the purpose that we are seeking to address here. The one advantage and perhaps difficulty of erecting a sign in the vicinity of the knives as defined would more starkly draw to the attention of the retailer the range and scope of the prohibition that the Crimes Act now does provide and perhaps impose on him that discipline to ensure that at least the act is not offended against.

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