Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Honourable Deputy Speaker, I echo the condolences shared by other members to Reid’s family. I also thank the minister’s staff and the members of Tasmania Police who offered quite an extensive briefing yesterday. That was appreciated.
Tasmania needs justice reform and we should be on the path to preventing crime and diverting people away from the criminal justice system. If we truly want to reduce crime then we need to address the root causes. We have heard a lot today about the politics behind this bill. It is a shame there was not more debate on some of the issues, particularly regarding youth, and some of the policies and systemic changes that could complement such a piece of legislation. In the past, the Liberals put forward a hooning and knife crime crackdown. Could the minister clarify whether that prior proposition is now going to be replaced with this current bill or whether there will be other pieces of legislation?
Mr Ellis – I tabled that this morning, the other legislation.
Ms BADGER – What you tabled this morning is for hooning and knife crime?
Mr Ellis – Hooning.
Ms BADGER – Hooning, but not knife crime as well?
Mr Ellis – This is the knife crime.
Ms BADGER – So they are separate now. Thank you, minister.
What this bill proposes, in broadening police powers via wand searching and through relaxing the threshold for such searches, will result in more people getting caught in the justice system, but not necessarily a reduction or deterrent of people with knives in public places. This is what the statistics from other states have demonstrated. We have heard a lot today about the 2022 Griffith University, the review of the Queensland Police Service wanding trial. On examination of wanding and knife crime on the Gold Coast, the study found that:
The evidence to date does not suggest any deterrent effect that can be attributed to wanding whereby fewer people are carrying knives.
I would also like to quote from the media release of the Australian Lawyers Alliance on 26 November 2020 which said:
Extra police powers will do little to solve the problem of violence and will likely lead to the risk of people being searched based on racial or cultural stereotyping. This means vulnerable people in our community will be disproportionately targeted.
Any decision to increase police powers must be based on research and evidence, as well as community need. Concerns have been raised that these laws will have a net widening impact, bringing more people into contact with the law. Police powers involve acts that can significantly impinge on fundamental human rights. That includes the right to liberty and the right to privacy. TasCOSS articulated the possibility of unintentional consequences these broader powers could lead to. In its submission on the bill, TasCOSS said:
Care needs to be taken to ensure that wanding does not lead to a bypassing of reasonable suspicion safeguards, a net widening among minor offenders who are not carrying weapons but, nevertheless, come to police attention purely because of wanding. The entry of larger numbers of people into the formal criminal justice system could have more adverse flow-on effects.
Other stakeholders, such as Community Legal Centres Tasmania, have raised concerns that these laws will disproportionately affect vulnerable groups: young people, homeless people and people from non-English speaking backgrounds. These concerns are valid. The Griffith University findings raised concern about equality – or the lack thereof, under the Queensland legislation. There was evidence of gender bias as well as some inappropriate use of stereotypes and cultural assumptions that was just made by a small group of officers in determining who to wand.
Minister, what specific training will be provided to Tasmanian police to address how the use of wands can impinge on human rights and personal freedoms, and the implications of the use of stereotypes that can help guide their decision-making further?
The minister, in his second reading speech, made mention of the government’s Youth Justice Blueprint 2024-2034 and spoke about the government’s commitment to this blueprint. This blueprint is all about prevention, early intervention and diversion. That leads us to some of the commission of inquiry recommendations. Members of the community have raised questions in terms of the commitment and prioritisation of this bill, consistent with both of those, that are far and above about prevention and diversion. To quote from TasCOSS’s second submission on the bill:
The Tasmanian government has committed to implementing recommendations from the commission of inquiry which are focused on reducing, not increasing, the number of children who are involved in the criminal, legal and detention systems. We are concerned this reform is not aligned with those objectives.
The 2025 Productivity Commission Report on Government Services shows the proportion of youth offenders who are streamed into diversion programs. Under this government, the proportion of these youth offenders subject to diversion has declined virtually every year, from 54.4 per cent in 2014-15 to 35.6 per cent in 2023-24.
In New South Wales, in 2023, tougher laws and programs included operations such as Operation Foil and initiatives like Operation PIVOT, which has seen police engage with over 3200 at-risk youths to deliver anti-violence presentations to over 987 schools, educating over 180,000 students.
Tasmania Police has an illicit drug diversion approach, which we heard a lot about this yesterday, that provides discretion for police. We are wondering if there is going to be a distinct approach for children and young people as far as knife crime is concerned. Minister, could you explain what mechanisms are in place, or are going to be in place, from a systemic policy or program perspective to actually deter youth or educate youth beyond just the increased police search powers?
From the Tasmanian wanding trials phase 1 and 2, statistics were available for the overall searches and what was found. What was not statistically available was how searches went for young people, if there were any, what was found and what percentage of those searches they made up.
With police being granted additional powers and the possible impingement of human rights this brings, in the absence of a human rights act in Tasmania, and having recently had the commission of inquiry with all its recommendations committed to being adopted, the Greens want to make sure this bill gets it right.
We know we do not only cut out crime by being tough on crime, we have to focus on justice reform. We will be proposing amendments about youth being subjected to the extensive police powers and a lot of the ‘reasonable belief’ versus ‘reasonable suspicion’, that has been changed and the comparison between the Family Violence Act and the drug and alcohol act. I would like members to reflect on the severity of both of those issues, not only in Tasmania but across the nation and how loosely some of that comparison can be used, particularly around the Family Violence Act, that is a national epidemic.
Is the penalty that is being proposed here fit for the crime? As the draft bill currently stands, the maximum penalty for having a knife in a public place would be a maximum of three years imprisonment. That is greater than if you possess or use a firearm for which you do not have a licence, for which the maximum penalty is two years imprisonment.
South Australia, as we have heard, did pass new knife crime legislation recently. I want to point out how different their wand powers are and how concentrated they are. We heard member for Lyons, Ms Butler talk a lot about the public places. In South Australia police can carry out wand searches at declared shopping centres, declared public transport hubs and on public transport. The police can carry out wand searches for up to six hours in any public place where there are reasonable grounds to believe an incident of violence or disorder may take place in the area and that the exercise of powers is reasonably necessary to prevent the incident. Police also have the power to conduct wand searches at any time at licenced premises specifically, and I know from the briefing yesterday that is something that is incredibly important or has been highlighted as an issue for Tasmania Police.
Information that also has not been provided is the number of times that police have not been able to conduct a search for knives or other weapons under this bill under the existing threshold of reasonable belief. We are wondering if that data is available, data which underpins the loosening of the threshold to reasonable suspicion. I will foreshadow that if that data is not available, the Greens will consider moving further amendments when this bill gets to the other place.
Back to the list of places, that is unjustified at the moment, the list that we have in front of us. It will increase police exposure to vulnerable groups in our community. It is specifically concerning around schools and the education facilities, because what we do not want to see, as an unintended side effect of this legislation, is that young people, particularly vulnerable young people, are not attending school because they are afraid of having interactions with police. We will be moving amendments to the list of public places to remove schools, education and training facilities, and this will bring Tasmania into line with the list of places that wand searching can be conducted with most other states in Australia. I note that Mr Garland has circulated multiple amendments and I would like to particularly highlight the need for the review of the legislation if passed and this amendment in particular, is very important and we hope that the statistics similarly will be reported through Tasmania Police’s annual report as well. We would like to highlight our full support for that amendment from Mr Garland.
The ‘tough on crime’ approach is not working and increasing police powers alone is not the deterrent that is required. We need far greater resourcing directed into dealing with the underlying causes of crime. We need education, we need job training, mental health support, we have to address the root causes as well as reintegration and rehabilitation to prevent re-offending.
While the Greens cannot support the bill as it is, we hope that with some amendments and in particular with the guarantee of other policy, systemic training, education, that will actually underpin this legislation and make it something that better aligns with the justice reform that is needed in the state, particularly around youth, off the back of the commission of inquiry, that then we can move forward.
