Page 662 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 July 1989
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stifle the debate on this important issue that has been brought up in the Assembly.
I agree with Mr Collaery that it is a matter on which there needs to be consultation; that has been my stance all along. I was very worried that I had not seen the Bill until it was presented in this Assembly last week, although I had asked to see it earlier than that. I have been concerned all along that there has not been a proper opportunity for community debate on the Bill. But I believe that there has been an expectation built up that this Assembly - not some special select committee, the nature of which we do not know - would be debating the Bill.
Mr Speaker, it has been my contention all along that the Bill, as presented, is an overly simplistic piece of legislation that does not address any underlying problem that might be associated with public behaviour. Certainly no evidence has been presented to this Assembly of what problem the Bill is designed to address.
We have heard any number of anecdotes about muggings, murders, and brawls outside clubs, but what we have not heard is how on earth the proposed Bill would have prevented those occurrences or would add to public order. We have heard, as I say, a lot of anecdotal evidence about crime.
Mr Kaine: I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to draw attention to the fact that what we are debating here is not the substance of the Bill, not what a select committee might do; we are debating merely a suspension of standing orders to allow a certain action to take place. It is not an opportunity - it is not appropriate - for the matters that are now being debated to be dealt with at this time. I would submit that what is happening now is that a debate is beginning on the substance of the Bill, the substance of the subject matter, and that we are not debating the suspension of the standing orders.
MR SPEAKER: I take your point, Mr Kaine.
MS FOLLETT: My point exactly is that, by permitting the suspension of standing orders, we will not have the opportunity to debate the substance of the Bill. I have foreshadowed already on the notice paper my intention that this Assembly should refer the problem that we are trying to address - the problem of public order, the problem of public behaviour, if there is one - to the appropriate Assembly committee, namely, the Standing Committee on Social Policy, which after all, as I understand it, has only one reference before it at the moment and which is the appropriate body of this Assembly to be looking at the social problems, the social situations, that have apparently given rise to this Bill.
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