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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1884 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

I indicated earlier that the government will not be proceeding with its amendment No 3 to clause 8. We are quite comfortable in supporting Mr Stanhope's amendment.

MR KAINE (4.24): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I must say that my intention is to oppose this clause entirely. While Mr Stanhope's amendment seeks to make the clause more acceptable, it is fascist for the bill to propose that if I set foot inside the precinct of a court, somebody can ask me for my name and address without any justification whatsoever. So my intention is to oppose the clause entirely.

As I say, Mr Stanhope's amendment seeks to tone down the clause a bit. At least the amendment says the security officer has to have reasonable grounds for asking me in the first place, and I am not too sure what those grounds might be. But I think this is a gross intrusion into my civil liberties and those of anybody else who chooses to set foot in one of our courts of law. I cannot imagine why the government put the clause in the bill in the first place. As I said, I will be voting against it.

MS TUCKER (4.25): As I have already said, I would prefer to see the clause go altogether. I agree with Mr Kaine. I understand what Mr Stanhope is doing. He is reducing the amount of information that can be requested to the name only and putting conditions around that. So I will support Mr Stanhope's amendment just in case we are not successful in deleting the whole clause.

MR RUGENDYKE: (4.26): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, as you are aware, my intention was to support the deletion of this clause, based on my belief that security officers should not have greater powers than police. However, I defer to the wisdom of the Leader of the Opposition and I agree that his amendment is a wise move. I will support the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 9.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hird): For the information of members, I advise that six amendments have been received in respect of clause 9-three from Mr Rugendyke, two from Mr Stefaniak and one from Ms Tucker. Standing order 133 provides that complicated questions may be divided on the order of the Assembly.

Ordered that the question be divided.

Subclause 9 (1).

MR RUGENDYKE (4.29): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name [see schedule 3 at page 1980]. This amendment removes the ability of security guards to perform a frisk search. Once again, this is in line with my previous position.

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