Page 4031 - Week 13 - Thursday, 10 November 1994
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a public discussion paper on the proposed ACT drug strategy. This paper provides an overview of the comprehensive and integrated way that the Government, with the non-government sector, is working, and plans to work, to reduce drug related harm. This legislation will ensure that those people who, despite our best efforts, still become intoxicated are provided with a safe environment in which to sleep it off.
Throughout Australia, drunkenness has been decriminalised. However, the ongoing problem of what we should do with intoxicated people found in public has remained. In most States and in the Northern Territory, sobering-up centres have been set up where people can stay, in some instances for up to 18 hours. Until recently, in the ACT, all intoxicated people were held in the city watch-house - a waste of police resources and an inappropriate place for people whose problem is not criminal but, rather, that they have had far too much to drink. In a smaller number of cases, people may also have been intoxicated through the use of other drugs.
As an initiative in the last budget, the Government allocated $100,000 per annum to fund places for people to sober up in. Since August this year, a sobering-up place has been operating on a pilot basis to develop effective referral and care protocols. The pilot has operated under the supervision of a joint government and non-government agency steering committee to bring together key players. In some States, intoxicated persons may be detained in a sobering-up place against their will. However, based on the experience of this pilot and the strong commitment of the ACT Government to maintaining civil liberty, the ACT has stepped away from the concept of involuntary detention of intoxicated people in sobering-up places. The Bill I am now introducing reflects this unique approach in the ACT. It ensures that people can use such places to sober up and leave of their own volition. The legislation will ensure that these places meet high standards and that the level of care is monitored.
A number of police powers currently in section 351 of the Crimes Act will be transferred to the new legislation. Police officers will retain their current powers to take into custody a person who is found intoxicated in a public place and who is behaving in a disorderly manner; behaving in a manner likely to cause injury to himself, herself or another person, or damage to property; or incapable of protecting himself or herself from physical harm. The legislation will also retain the power for police to detain such a person in custody for up to eight hours, or until that person is no longer intoxicated. For example, where an intoxicated person is also violent, it may be more appropriate to accommodate that person in the watch-house rather than in a licensed place for sobering-up purposes. The legislation provides for the police to allow the intoxicated person to remain at the police station for up to 12 hours, even though the person may be detained for only eight hours. For example, in cases where the person is released after eight hours but there is no suitable transport available or the person wishes to wait for a friend to collect them, the police could use their discretion to allow the person to remain at the police station for up to an additional four hours.
The legislation provides police officers with the discretion to release the intoxicated person if it appears reasonable to do so. This could be when some other responsible person or relative assumes the care of the intoxicated person. It also specifies that it is reasonable for an officer to release the person into the care of a manager at a licensed place. Police will retain the power to search a person, but the search is limited to that of
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