Ah WA, you little police state, you.
New legislation, set to be introduced into state Parliament in next month, means police can now stop and search people and vehicles in designated areas without having to prove reasonable suspicion that a crime has taken place. Yes, that’s right, WA Premier Colin Barnett has proposed laws with the express purpose of stopping, searching and interrogating folk for no reason at all.
Of course, this is the state that still outlaws meetings of five or more people in a public place without a permit. Helps keep those damn Commie pinko left-wing hippie subversive social activist types in line, you see.
Defending the laws on radio, Barnett said that the new laws would give police greater powers to stop and search people in particular areas where crime and anti-social behaviour is perceived as a problem … or in reality, where music-lovers are taking drugs at festivals.
Huffed the Premier, “We will target known problem areas such as Northbridge after midnight, so families going out for a meal in Northbridge will not be a focus for the police.” Quite apart from pondering what sort of families are taking little Dick and Dora out for dinner after midnight, one also wonders what to make of the suggestion that without these laws, mum, dad and the 2.3 kids currently are a focus for the police.
Barnett continued, saying that “The people we are targeting are those who are carrying weapons or drugs and intending to create trouble and going to places like Northbridge and Scarborough or Mullalloo beaches where there have been problems in the past.”
Your humble correspondent is no lawyer, not even a bush one, but the main problem with all this is so obvious as to make its observation tedious. Clearly the police must have some reason to think you’re carrying drugs, or they wouldn’t search you. So exactly how does that require a law explicitly removing the need for police to have a reason for a stop ‘n’ search?
Barnett, his police minister Rob Johnson and Attorney-General Christian Porter have been arguing that under the current laws, time and resources are spent in court debating whether police could justify the grounds for their suspicion instead of whether the offenders were actually in possession of illegal objects. Apparently police shouldn’t have to bother with justifying their actions to a court of law. An interesting view from those charged with the protection of democratic principles and protections … explain to us again how a Bill of Rights is worse than an elected Parliament when it comes to civil liberties?
God help us, these are the men responsible for the administration of justice in WA.
Shadow Attorney General John Quigley has labeled the laws “fascist”, although coming from a pre-Vatican II Catholic that may not actually be an insult. Predictably, the Police Association has backed the laws — when on earth will the police stop admitting they are too incompetent to administer any law with a semblance of accountability involved? — and the civil liberties protesters have been labeled with the usual epithets.
So come, visit Western Australia. Get felt up by the cops, left without legal redress and probably end up in custody. It’s a tourist marketers dream, really.
you should have added that you’ll probably get tasered before you get into custody
yesterday’s paper showed police officers once again using a taser to subdue a suspect during arrest, in contravention of their terms of use.
the gentleman being taken into custody was shown ‘resisting arrest’ on his knees with his hands in the air, whilst the arresting officer jabs the taser into the back of his neck.
and don’t forget Barnett’s mandatory sentencing laws for assaulting a public officer. Two cases are before the courts, both people having been released from psychiatric care just prior to the alleged offence.
Ah WA perfect one day police state the next,I mean people should look at the CCC and the powers they have been handed to conduct surveillance of every thing,which you can not access.
This State is run by Barnett with the right wing AG and troy the chair sniffer,the rest of parliament may as well not bother
since you mention the CCC, no discussion of the WA Police and DPP woudl be complete without a mention of their complete incompetence, highlighted by the Mallard Case, the Mickelbergs, and their distinct failure to get anywhere with the Rayney investigation.
it doesn’t matter how many extra powers they get, you have to wonder whether the WA Police could find their own arse in the dark using both hands
Sorry Warrior, but I’ve got news for you. WA is just catching up with the rest of Australia. The cops can stop a car, search the car and its occupants in every other State and have done so for years. In Queensland, cops can stop and search any person on the street if they believe they have due cause. Get used to it.
Last time I was in WA, the local rags were full of terrible tales of miscreants (sorry, “thugs”) attacking our brave police officers and both sides of politics were in an unseemly rush to bring in the mandatory jail terms for “assault”, which at that time was being defined rather vaguely. Not having much access to WA news over here, I haven’t followed the outcome. At the time, one thing which struck me, was the articles in The West Australian describing, essentially, alcohol related violence, and on the same or opposite pages, large advertisements for cheap alcohol! That, and the lack of any significant alternate argument being put in public discourse.
In NSW, I and my partner attended the Newtown festival about a year ago. Tree hugging greenies that we are, we caught the train to Newtown railway station. We were very impressed that CityRail had scheduled many extra trains to stop at Newtown that day. Then we alighted. Waiting to greet us on the platform was a gauntlet of a dozen or so jack-booted greyshirts demanding to inspect our tickets. (Would not one have been enough?). We climbed the stairs, to be greeted by a dozen or so police officers with sniffer dogs. For some unknown doggy reason, a sniffer dog decided that we were both carriers of some interesting smell. So we were both subjected to a full search and inspection of everything we were carrying. The dog handler seemed most annoyed that nothing illegal was discovered upon our persons, but we were allowed to leave.
Several things about this bugged me. The first being that, had I driven in by car, I would have avoided the indignity of being detained and searched. Why are rail passengers considered to be such a danger to law and order? The second is that my partner suffers from PTSD. She was able to maintain an outward calm. But she suffered a great deal, and who knows how close she came to a full blown panic attack? I shudder to think what could have happened had she panicked. She probably would have run and been chased and so forth. As it was, our day was substantially ruined.
It really worries me that populist governments everywhere see law and order as such a vote winner. It is unfortunately all too human that if a person is given too much power without accountability, they will abuse that power. Whether it is tasering or searching or detaining someone just because they can. Of course one can smile and be polite and accept it all, and little trouble is likely to come of it. But to accept such indignities calmly requires the sort of emotional stability which is less likely amongst those from a disadvantaged background. So we get back to reinforcing disadvantage.
Enough rambling!