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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3086 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

reading of that provision and there is no other interpretation, but that in that particular circumstance-

Mr Humphries: "Suspect is a serious offence."

MR STANHOPE: No, that is not what subparagraphs (1)(b)(ii) and (iii) of clause 29 say.

Mr Humphries: But it is what 29(1)(b) says.

MR STANHOPE: It is what subparagraph (1)(b)(i) of clause 29 says. After subparagraph (1)(b)(i) of clause 29 the word is "or", not "and". The Attorney would know that when the word "or" is used to separate subparagraphs, there is a separate circumstance. That is the truth. Either you had some intention to include "suspect" within subclause (1)(b) of clause 29 or it is a drafting error. It is one or the other, but your interpretation is not correct and cannot be correct.

To the extent that I am concerned about the scope and reach of this legislation, its potential application to suspects other than serious offenders, it comes down to what is the meaning of that clause. The meaning of subparagraphs (1)(b)(ii) and (iii) of clause 29 is that in a certain circumstance, perhaps extreme but nevertheless specifically provided for in the legislation, anybody who commits an offence of any sort in the ACT can be subjected to a compulsory test. That is what it means.

The Attorney might be able to insist that it is simply a mistake, and maybe it is. It seems so unusual to me, but perhaps it is simply a drafting mistake. But I was entitled from my perspective, perhaps through a touch of paranoia about this vigorously driven law and order government, to assume that it was seeking through this mechanism to include within the net of people who can be tested a far wider range than the Attorney had admitted.

That issue has led to a number of my amendments. I am seeking to put beyond doubt the Attorney's claim that only people suspected of a serious offence can be tested. It seems to me, in terms of the Attorney's rhetoric and our position, that we have the same attitude to this legislation; it is just that I do not think that the legislation delivers what the Attorney claims it to deliver. We agree on the outcome we want, but I do not think that this legislation delivers it. We believe that only serious offenders should be tested.

The Labor Party does depart from the Liberal Party's approach to this issue on a couple of issues. One of them is in relation to the categorising of a buccal swab as a non-intimate procedure. We think that the taking of a mouth swab or buccal swab, particularly where consent is not granted, should not carry the tag of non-intimate. That is the attitude we have to that. In its invasion of a body cavity, I think that it is a significant invasion of the person. For those people who consent, as we saw Mr Humphries and Mr Rugendyke demonstrating, it is not a particularly onerous obligation or task. But in those circumstances where somebody, for whatever reason, decides not to consent, there are quite serious implications.

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