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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (23 August) . . Page.. 3256 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

section 12AE of the ASIC Act. Although the Commonwealth has yet to formally indicate its position on this issue, the government is increasingly confident the Commonwealth will make the required regulations. Accordingly, the government now supports the deletion of clauses 4 and 5.

Clauses 4 and 5 negatived.

Clauses 6 to 18, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 19.

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (12.10): I move amendment No 3 circulated in my name [see schedule 3 at page 3307].

Mr Speaker, this amendment alters the ground on which a warrant may be issued. The government's proposal makes no reference or connection with an offence in relation to the issuing of a warrant. It refers only to an investigation, raising the question: investigating what?

The Labor Party position is that there must at least be some suspicion that an offence has been committed or is being committed to justify the search. My proposed amendment is to omit a subsection and substitute a following section which says that there has to be at least some suspicion that an offence has been committed or is being committed to justify the issuing of the search warrant, rather than as concurrently entertained in the act, which just refers to an offence and not to the suspicion that an offence has been committed.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Attorney-General) (12.11): As I indicated, Mr Speaker, the government does not object to amendment No 3. The phrase "reasonable grounds for suspecting" is in fact the phrase adopted by common law and statutes.

Amendment agreed to.

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (12.12): I move amendment No 4 circulated in my name [see schedule 3 at page 3307].

This is a further amendment to clause 19 which simply removes the words "if any" from the clause. This goes again to the issuing of search warrants. The Labor Party amendment has the effect of providing that the warrant should be certain in its terms and refer to the offence that the person is suspected of committing and the evidence that is expected to be found. It is just to provide some certainty in relation to the reasons for the issuing of the search warrant.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Attorney-General) (12.12): Mr Speaker, the government does not object to amendment No 4 and the related amendments Nos 5 through to 7.

Although the government concedes this amendment, I wish to inform the Assembly why the provision was proposed in the first place. The existing bill permits an inspector to apply for a warrant by telephone or other electronic means. The opposition, I understand,

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