Page 667 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 July 1989
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position. That is a problem. Of course, the caveat that Mr Wood mentions is correct. This is a very short reporting time, but the issues facing the community, according to one side of the debate, are urgent and serious. People could be maimed or killed during the period, and a short reporting period is forced upon us. We have here in the Assembly today the victims of violent crime. They are passively demonstrating their deep concern, and we must show compassion.
On the other hand, a very great, socially minded judge in the South Australian Supreme Court in 1971 reminded himself and his fellow judges that the young usually comprised over 50 per cent of the community and were usually those who were out and about on the streets more than they were. Speaking about his fellow judges and policemen, he said that he did not find a proposition anywhere - with great respect to the doyen of this Assembly - that community standards were those commonly held by persons over the age of 50.
Mr Stefaniak has aged a lot in the last week, Mr Speaker, but I do not think he comes within that prescription. So far as the young are concerned, the judge said that the obscenities of this life are not such things as offensive behaviour and the like, for which the police are apt to arrest them at the moment, but war, racial discrimination, the imbalance of wealth and poverty, and the destruction of the ecological system. There is a very clear indication to us from a judge, dealing in that particular case with a loitering-type offence, that we must consider the attitude of the young in relation to this Bill. This select committee will look at those issues.
As my friend Mr Stefaniak has indicated and as my friend Mr Kaine said, there was the most extraordinary debate this morning on radio. What they debated was a nineteenth century London law of loitering. It had no relevance to the Bill before this house. Regrettably, we had no informed debate on that program. We are unlikely to have it until - and I say this with respect and not to prejudge a decision of the select committee - an advertisement appears in this Saturday's papers to ensure that all of the public, all of the people, the aged particularly, have a chance to know that this is on and can make their submissions to the committee.
Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister has, surprisingly, opposed this move, which really supports what was said outside yesterday about time for consideration, but let me remind the Chief Minister that appearing on the notice paper this morning was a like submission and a like motion to do something with this Bill, which I had not seen either. It is ironic that the Chief Minister finds herself now, as she says, taken by surprise when the same has happened on this side of the house recently and coming from the Government benches.
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