Page 1407 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 9 May 2006
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This country and of course this community—and we hope this government—are there to respond to threats which are not of our own making. You might debate whether our behaviour or our actions overseas may be contributing to certain circumstances. You could debate that all day, but now is not the time to be debating it. Putting that aside, the reality is that the threat is there. That dark history the Chief Minister talked about is there; he is right, but it is not of our making; and we would be irresponsible not to be responding to it professionally. Therefore the issue of children must be looked at.
The issue of when is a child a child and when are they responsible for their actions is a very good point—and I do not disagree with the points raised by Mr Corbell in that regard. However, we are not dealing now with a 16-year-old child who might be responsible for a domestic offence.
In this case, Mr Stefaniak is asking that our law be equipped to allow the authorities to take community safety action—I stress community safety action—where they may feel that even a 16-year-old is implicated in something that can have far-reaching consequences, more so than consequences we see police dealing with in domestic crime. What do police do now if they have a 15 or 16-year-old teenager who has perhaps been implicated in a shooting, an accidental shooting or may be thought to be on his way to be involved in a shooting? Do they not detain him, at least for his own protection, as well as for the community’s protection? Is this not what Mr Stefaniak is asking for?
Mr Corbell: Not without a parent.
MR PRATT: Perhaps not. There is perhaps a point there.
Mr Corbell: Yes; a kind of important one, actually.
MR PRATT: There are plenty of examples in this country and around the world where 16-year-olds have done something fairly silly. Mr Stefaniak is talking about a 16-year-old potentially doing something fairly silly but with, maybe, weapons of mass destruction or mass murder in mind. What do you do? What do the authorities do? Are they unable to detain that person, both for their own protection and for the protection of the community? I put that question to you. Dr Foskey weighed in that her total commitment and that of the Greens to human rights is what is driving their concern.
I do not disagree with that either; that is fine. But surely a total commitment to human rights, Dr Foskey, is in relation not only to this question on children; there is also a need for legislation to protect the community which may infringe on people’s civil rights. Surely the balance is also that you have a total commitment to protecting the broader community’s human rights to be safe. When you are totally committed to the protection of human rights, surely you are totally committed to that balance between the civil rights of the individual who may be arrested or detained and the collective civil rights of the broader community to be able to be protected against people who may be bent on mayhem. I would ask the Greens to be a lot clearer in their understanding of that.
Dr Foskey said this morning that the Liberals were weighing their case entirely against the evidence put to the committee here by Commissioner Keelty. That is not the case at all. Indeed, if Dr Foskey had been listening, I listed a number of very important
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