greens oppose second lot of draconian stop and search powers

Greens MLC, Sue Pennicuik

For the second time in seven months, the parliament has passed legislation to dramatically increase police powers to stop and search people. The Greens opposed the expansion of the laws in parliament yesterday as they opposed the first bill late last year.

"One of the worst aspects of the new laws is that police will now be able to search children of any age and people with impaired intellectual functioning, in an unplanned designated area, without a parent, guardian or independent person present," said Ms Pennicuik. "It is unbelievable to me the Labour, Liberal and National parties can vote to remove these protections just to make it easier for the police."

"This is an outrageous violation of human rights generally, the rights of the child and the rights of people with disabilities," Ms Pennicuik said. "It is completely unwarranted and simply indefensible."

Under the first set of increases to coercive powers, which came into effect in January, police were given the authority to randomly search citizens without reasonable belief, going even further than the UK anti-terrorist laws. The random search legislation is so broadly drafted it can also be applied to lawful protestors. The latest legislation relaxes even further the circumstances under which random searches of citizens may occur.

"In preparing to debate that bill I studied jurisdictions around the world that already have such regimes. It points to their ineffectiveness and the almost guaranteed negative outcomes of such legislation," she said. "Regrettably, the government ignored that wealth of research and has introduced laws that not only breach the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and responsibilities, but have also been shown to be ineffective."

During the debate last night Ms Pennicuik again moved a reasoned amendment to have the bill removed from Parliament until a comprehensive review of the new powers, introduced in January, could be undertaken.

"I moved this amendment, as I did previously under the first bill, because these are very serious issues, and our approach must be evidence based, not based on manipulation of the community anxiety," Ms Pennicuik said.

The legislation has also come under fire for removing several police reporting requirements.

"There is no justification for doing away with record-keeping," Ms Pennicuik said. "The government keeps saying, without evidence, that these powers are required. Well how will we know when the act no longer requires full record keeping?"

"It is unfathomable that the government is taking Victoria down this road particularly as Victoria enjoys a relatively low crime rate," Ms Pennicuik said. "The government's populist stance is resulting in negative outcomes for Victorians, with policies that simply do not address the causes of crime."