Page 1689 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
explanatory statement should justify this power and, indeed, it should justify why it cannot be used without the kinds of safeguards that are present in relation to other police search powers.
If other parties want the search power to be one in which certain items can be confiscated because they are illegal or are likely to have evidentiary importance, I would ask them to amend this section so that it is expressed in that way.
I would point out that police already have powers for search and confiscation under other parts of our criminal law. This includes the ability to search people who are in custody. Importantly, these powers contain safeguards such as the fact that the details of the search have to be recorded or the search has to be conducted by an officer of a certain rank. This is not the case with the provision that the government has proposed.
Putting aside this point, the Greens are in agreement with this bill. We do look forward to seeing a smooth implementation of roadside drug testing in the ACT.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Minister for Transport, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Land and Property Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage) (11.55), in reply: I thank members for their contributions, as fragile as they were. Nevertheless, I do appreciate their engagement with the issue. It would be nice, too, for both of them, just in the spirit of the fragility and the defensiveness exhibited, to reflect on some of their own behaviour in relation to this issue, having regard to the refusal to accept the enormous work which departmental officers have done on this issue.
It is not so much that it was rendered irrelevant but I just wonder whether Ms Bresnan or Mr Hanson understand the effort, at the end of the day much of it wasted, that hardworking, dedicated departmental staff devoted to this particular issue and that at the end of the day was not able to be used or utilised—months of work that at the end of the day had to be redone.
I say to Ms Bresnan, in relation to her continued view of history in relation to this matter, that I had an undertaking from Mr Rattenbury that we would proceed to develop and conclude our draft and that I have a press release from Mr Rattenbury in which he specifically states that the Greens would be happy for the government’s bill on this issue to be debated cognately with that of Ms Bresnan.
Ms Bresnan: And the bill never came.
MR STANHOPE: You will recall that, I am sure, Ms Bresnan.
Ms Bresnan: The bill never appeared, though.
MR STANHOPE: I am sure you recall that, Ms Bresnan. You recall the undertaking which Mr Rattenbury gave publicly that the Greens would agree to a debate. I am sure you recall that and you will not deny that, Ms Bresnan—that the Greens reneged on an undertaking, a public undertaking, to commit to a cognate debate on the legislation
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video