Page 4251 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 23 October 2019
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Unfortunately, it cannot stop someone being arrested and charged if the commonwealth officials were minded to do so or prosecuted if the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions thought it was appropriate to do so.
The use of the defence provided by ACT law would be a matter for the courts to consider. There are many steps that the commonwealth must take between arresting someone and successfully prosecuting them in court.
And this is where you get to the nub of it. He then went on:
Here in the ACT the government hopes sincerely that the time and resources of our Federal Police, prosecutors and courts will not be wasted pursuing individual cannabis users who are acting in accordance with ACT law.
Mr Ramsay hopes that people will not be prosecuted, because if they are, in every likelihood, they will be found guilty of a criminal offence. And isn’t that the problem? We have an attorney-general whose legal argument, in essence, is that in regard to what is being pursued here in the ACT he is hoping that the police do not enforce the law. He hopes that no-one will be prosecuted; he hopes that police do not do their job.
But the problem is that—as I quoted from the letter and what Christian Porter, the federal Attorney-General, said on ABC Insiders, he has made it clear—he expects federal laws to be enforced and he expects sworn police officers to do their job. He does not expect them to be walking past what is a commonwealth crime being committed.
Unless the member opposite, Mr Pettersson, who put forward this legislation, is willing to put his hand up and say, “Yes, I will be the test case. I am happy to be the test case,” then what essentially is going to happen, as I quoted from the ABC article, is that some poor Canberra citizen, thinking that they are doing something legal, is going to be the test case and find themselves potentially prosecuted for a criminal offence. Will Mr Pettersson put his hand up? Will he be the person who is prepared to do that? And if he is not prepared to do so then we should not be commencing this legislation, because what we are saying is that we are going to tell people it is legal, let someone get caught up in the legal system, let them the best test case, and he is not prepared to do it. We will see.
It is not only citizens that get caught up in this, it is also our police officers. As the Australian Federal Police Association said, “These laws are setting police up to fail.” And they said yesterday:
ACT Policing hasn’t had to use Commonwealth cannabis legislation because today’s—
that is, the existing—
ACT legislation is sufficient to deal with the matter via SCONS, —
that is, a simple cannabis offence notice—
diversion, and education.
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