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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 3695 ..

MR MOORE: That is the next thing we need-to seize caps because people are wearing them back to front. It is extraordinarily annoying to see them wearing them that way. Then there are skateboards. You know how annoying those skateboards are. People do dangerous things on them. I have seen them come down the steps out the front here. Seize them. Of course, you will have to give them back in due time. That is the obvious thing to do.

What else can we seize? As long as it does not affect middle-class people, it will be okay. We can seize it, and it will be fine. The things that we like are okay. We must be very careful. If you have a beer in your hand, we cannot have the police seize that, even though beer bottles cause terrible problems. What about reading material? I see people reading things I do not like. We should be able rip those things out of people's hands.

Mr Rugendyke is back with his law and order bill. Seize vehicles. This will solve the problem. This takes me back to the Second Assembly. Mr Connolly was an excellent debater. One of the techniques he used very effectively-I am sure members will remember this with some fondness-was the straw-man technique. He would build up a big problem and then introduce a solution to it. We now have the straw car technique from Dave Rugendyke. He builds up this great problem of straw tyres and straw cars. They are creating terrible problems for our society.

Look what it does to the roads. You may not realise this, but it leaves black marks on the roads. They are not straight black marks. They are black marks that snake down the road. How can we have that in a neat and tidy Canberra, particularly in the inner suburbs where we have a grid system and straight roads? It is not so bad where Mr Rugendyke lives in the electorate of Ginninderra, where the roads are nice and curvy. You do not want to seize cars there. I bet that the 16 cars that were seized were all seized around Braddon, or a great proportion of them were.

Young people like to look at each other's cars. They get a bit carried away and they burn out a tyre or two. Tyres are not cheap. There are probably some people here who, although I am sure they have not inhaled the smoke from the tyres, have probably let the clutch out at such a speed, no doubt accidentally, that the tyres squalled. They could have had their car seized if they had been 10 or 15 years younger.

This is over-the-top legislation. The punishment is totally out of proportion to the crime. That is what is wrong here. On the last private members day of the Fourth Assembly, we should give Mr Rugendyke's bill short shrift. We should say, "Let us leave this alone." If he comes back after the election and there is a big conservative majority in the next Assembly, he can introduce his bill then and we will have to drive more carefully. This is out of proportion and should be rejected.

MR RUGENDYKE (9.37), in reply: In closing the debate, I thank members who support this important piece of legislation. I know that when the police had this tool in the kitbag last time they used it wisely, cautiously and appropriately. They did not abuse it. I know they will use it in the same way if it is passed this evening. I am very pleased that the majority of members in the Assembly have agreed that these provisions should be reinstated in the appropriate legislation.

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