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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2782 ..

Clause 10.

MS TUCKER (10.59): Mr Speaker, I have to move my amendments now.

MR SPEAKER: I thought we were having a cognate debate.

MS TUCKER: I have not actually moved my amendments.

MR SPEAKER: You may formally move them.

MS TUCKER: I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name [see schedule 6 at page 2881].

MR SPEAKER: Do you wish to speak to it, Ms Tucker?

MS TUCKER: I have spoken to it.

MR RUGENDYKE (11.00): I will not be supporting this amendment. It is a matter of enshrining in legislation what police do normally. There are notebook entries of the crime, date, place and direction. That is normal police procedure that police follow when they use these move-on powers. They are standard operating procedures. I see no need to enshrine them in legislation.

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (11.01): I support the amendment. It seems to me that these are just basic and not particularly onerous accountability mechanisms that should be built into any process whereby a paid official gives a direction, particularly of this sort, to a member of our community. It is not much to ask of a police officer who tells people to move, gives them an order, tells them to rack off, that he be accountable for that. It is not much to ask for and it should be formalised. There is absolutely nothing against having these sorts of formal reporting mechanisms in our legislation, particularly when we are dealing with very fundamental individual liberties and rights.

I think we need to be mindful of that. We also need to be mindful of it in considering some of the other amendments which I fear may be successful tonight in relation to some of the other powers we are about to give to our police, if sanity does not prevail in this place. Do not take this proposal into consideration in isolation of other proposals that are included in this legislation. These are basic, simple, non-onerous measures of accountability that our police should not be afraid of.

Question put:

That Ms Tucker's amendment be agreed to.

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