STATUTES AMENDMENT (PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES AND ADDRESSES) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 19 October 2011.)

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (17:32): Unfortunately the government cannot support this bill. The Minister for State/Local Government Relations, the Hon. Russell Wortley, intends to introduce a bill to the parliament which addresses the same issue that the Hon. Stephen Wade attempts to address through this private member's bill debated today.

The honourable minister's bill seeks to amend the Local Government Act 1999 to remove the current restriction in that act which prevents a council from adopting a model by-law until the time for disallowance has passed. This will allow the adoption of a model by-law any time after it is published in the Government Gazette.

As the house would be aware, the model by-law, known as the Local Government (Model By-Law) Proclamation 2011, was published in the South Australian Government Gazette on 13 October. This by-law was introduced in an effort to replace the disallowed by-law No. 6 in a shorter time frame than would have been available to the Adelaide City Council under the Local Government Act 1999.

The model by-law was developed at the request of the council following its inability to control the activities of certain groups within Rundle Mall, owing to the disallowance motion being passed by the Legislative Council in September of this year. The model by-law does not contain any of the words that were held to be invalid by the Full Court. However, it does give a council the ability to regulate the use of amplification generally, the use of equipment such as platforms or stages, and importantly prohibit the interference or disruption of any other person's permitted use of a pedestrian mall such as Rundle Mall.

The amendments proposed in the honourable minister's bill will enable the Adelaide City Council to have in place a by-law to manage the activities in Rundle Mall in the lead up to the busy Christmas period. The amendment also provides that, in the event that the model by-law is disallowed, the model by-law adopted by the council will be of no effect on or after the date of disallowance. The Hon. Stephen Wade's bill has taken a different approach by making significant amendments to the Summary Offences Act 1953 and the Public Assemblies Act 1972.

As I understand, the Public Assemblies Act 1972 currently allows for an advanced notification system where a group wishes to assemble or rally. The general idea is that the public can demonstrate and assemble unless the authorities object to the particular notification, at which point the courts decide the merit of the application. We think this is a good system. The Public Assemblies Act 1972 arose out of the September moratorium demonstrations of 1970 and looks to enshrine the rights of protesters.

The Hon. Stephen Wade's amendment to the Public Assemblies Act seems to set aside restricted areas for protected assemblies, for example, providing for designated speakers' corners. The government believes that the Hon. Mr Wade's amendment runs against the spirit of this legislation. Indeed, the Hon. Mr Wade's amendment would, highly likely, be subject to constitutional challenge in the courts. The amendment proposes that the minister's bill provide a solution to the immediate problem and will enable the Adelaide City Council to adopt and implement the model by-law before Christmas this year.

We welcome the input of all parties to develop the best solution possible. However, this bill has a much broader application and greater consequences than the amended proposed Local Government Act 1999 by the government. This is a complex piece of legislation, which could have wide-ranging consequences across the whole state. While the government is not able to support the bill at this time, I am advised that the minister is prepared to work collaboratively with members to look at a longer term option and the potential benefits of a different approach to this issue.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (17:37): This afternoon I will speak briefly in support of the Hon. Stephen Wade's Statutes Amendment (Public Assemblies and Addresses) Bill. In light of the escalating issue with street preachers in our city centre, it is important that we take action and do so now. It is no secret to anyone in this chamber that I fully support freedom of speech, but I question whether freedom of speech is truly freedom if it comes at the cost of the peace of our mall-goers, as this street preaching is clearly doing. I also think it is no secret that diversity is crucial to our beloved mall, so we must fight to protect a Rundle Mall that is everyone’s.

Whilst I strongly support the right to free speech, as I said, and the right of people to follow a belief system of their choice, I do not believe that amplified public harassment and ramming one's views down the throat of another as they are simply passing by is an appropriate method of sharing one's opinions. I was very concerned to hear the discussion on this issue on 891's morning program with Matt Abraham and David Bevan. In this discussion the street preacher called Caleb Corneloup talked about individuals being targeted in the mall, and I quote Caleb verbatim from the transcript of this program:

I'm not sure, I haven't specifically seen people doing it, pointing out people because of the way they dress or anything, but I imagine perhaps somebody has in the past and I don't see anything wrong with that. I think it's not a problem to give a general comment during the preaching about the way that a women dresses because there are ways that women dress which are provocative, which are shameful, because there's also ways that women dress which are good and they can still be attractive and so forth. There's nothing wrong with preaching against sin.

Caleb's view that preaching at young women with a megaphone is indeed occurring, and that it is completely okay to do this was supported by further exchange on the same radio show. This is a quote from a caller by the name of Howard:

I was walking past, watching these guys preach. A young girl took issue with their view on abortion. They targeted her for about 15 minutes with a bullhorn. Two of them doing standover tactics with this young girl...I stepped in to defend this girl...she was beside herself with what they were saying, that she was cursed, damned to hell because she'd had an abortion and God had turned his back on her, and they quoted various scriptures that were taken totally out of context. They're...an affront to moderates everywhere.

To which David Bevan asked, 'Caleb, is this sort of thing going on?', and Caleb replied:

I know the example he's talking about...this girl came up laughing and mocking saying she'd had three abortions, the preacher then began to speak to her...saying she had murdered three children, which is true, abortion is murder, you cannot go murdering, the safest place for the child should be in the womb...

As a feminist, as a young woman, as a person who is pro-choice, and as someone who obviously supports the rights of same-sex attracted people also, I will not go into all the reasons I find the whole street preaching situation thoroughly deplorable, but I will say I hope this bill can provide something of a solution to the current state of affairs.

As I understand it, this bill ensures people disturbing the peace can be requested, by the police, to reduce the level of noise that an amplification system is producing, or indeed direct a person to stop using the amplification device altogether. This allows the police to subjectively assess the noise being created by a person or group, and the public context (that is, surrounding noise) in which it is being created.

At present, the Adelaide City Council cannot enforce fines issued on this matter as they have no authority to collect names and addresses. This bill also addresses this problem. I would hope that, given the kind of highly concerning exchanges that are already occurring in the mall, the police would seek to intervene and direct street preachers not to use amplification.

To that end, I also note, as the Hon. Mr Kandelaars has already indicated, that the government will be introducing amendments to the Local Government Act which I personally consider to be complementary to this bill. I consider that the amendments to the Local Government Act will simply expedite the use of by-law 6, where this bill will allow us to take longer-term action, and that this end, both pieces of legislation will have my support. Thank you.

The Hon. M. PARNELL (17:43): The Greens believe that the issues raised in this bill are important and need to be addressed, and we congratulate the Hon. Stephen Wade on taking the initiative to try to address what has been a very unfortunate series of events that occurs, I think if not nightly, then at least weekly, in Rundle Mall.

The street preachers, I think, are out of control, and I think we do need a legislative regime to make sure that people going about their lawful business in Rundle Mall are not subjected to the level of abuse and haranguing that they have to date.

I think that this council did the right thing in disallowing the regulations that Adelaide City Council had prepared, and I think that we were vindicated in that decision by a subsequent court decision. The question before us now is whether the bill that the Hon. Stephen Wade has put forward provides the best fix to this problem. Unfortunately, the Greens' position is that we do not believe that it does.

Having said that, we believe that it could be made acceptable by amendment, and I have discussed that with the Hon. Stephen Wade, but as it currently stands, we are not proposing to support it. Having said that, what I will say is that we do support the part of the bill that refers to the establishment of speakers' corners. I think that is a good initiative. We also support the idea that, in certain circumstances, public address systems should be able to be ordered turned off or even confiscated. To that end, I think we do support what the honourable member is trying to do in this bill.

The single sticking point for us is in the way that the member has drafted the amendments to the Summary Offences Act. The proposed new section 55 says, 'If a person uses a public address system in a prescribed area without authorisation', then certain consequences follow. The prescribed area could be anywhere in South Australia; it is not confined to Rundle Mall or to pedestrian malls in particular. The only restriction on where these prescribed areas can be is that the minister has to consult with local councils before passing a regulation that prescribes an area.

I will declare an interest here, Mr President. I am the owner of not one, but two, public address systems, and they have been used on many occasions in places in Adelaide and in the suburbs, in the street. We use them in town halls, obviously, for public meetings and indoor environments. One of my public address systems was used not that long ago in Grenfell Street. I have used them on North Terrace. Often we find a situation where legitimate protest involves people standing outside, for example, annual meetings of mining companies. That is a common scenario.

Yesterday we received a report in this place from the Ombudsman which had a reference in it to 700 people outside the Charles Sturt council at one stage. I certainly attended a number of rallies outside the Charles Sturt council chambers. I recall at one of them I had my public address system in the boot, should it be required, but in fact the organisers were on to it; they had their own public address system.

To take a worst case scenario under this legislation, if the minister and the council—Charles Sturt, for example—were to decide that the park across the road from the council chambers was to be one of these prescribed areas, then anyone who tried to rally in that place could find that their public address system was confiscated if they did not obey an instruction to turn it off.

If that regime were to apply in Rundle Mall, then I think we would support it, because it would actually deal with some of the problems the Hon. Kelly Vincent referred to—the awful behaviour of some people in Rundle Mall. It is not that we are against having provisions that enable public address systems to be controlled. We are just not prepared to support legislation that does not have any real restriction on where those areas might be. I think there is the potential in the wrong hands for this provision to infringe the right of free speech.

That brings us to the matter that the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars referred to, which is a proposed bill (which I received notice of within the last hour) and which appears to be an attempt to fix the situation. It fixes the situation by allowing a revised by-law that does not infringe the problems that we in this council identified as reason to disallow. It does not infringe those provisions, but does have the ability to come into operation quickly and certainly before the busy Christmas period.

Of course it is highly unusual, and normally we would not be happy with a new bill being introduced and an expectation that we pass it immediately. That is not the way this council works, but it seems that this bill, whilst the Greens have not discussed it in detail, may provide a way forward. Faced with the decision of whether to support the Hon. Stephen Wade's bill tonight or whether to have a good look at this new government bill tomorrow, we are inclined to not support the member's bill now and to have a look at this attempt by the government to fix up the situation when it comes in tomorrow.

Having said that, I think that we do owe the Hon. Stephen Wade a debt of gratitude. He has worked hard on this issue. He has tried to come up with a solution and he has engaged certainly the Greens, and I imagine other members of the crossbench, in a way that no minister has ever engaged us on issues like this. Whilst the honourable member might be disappointed we are not supporting his bill now, I think that we do owe it to him that we have, in fact, got to the situation where the government has been embarrassed into having to bring something to us at this late stage in an attempt to fix up the problem.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (17:50): I will speak briefly. I understand we have about 10 minutes before the break, so I will probably use all of that if members are agreeable. This bill appears to be trying to address a very contentious situation. Members will be aware that, some time ago, I said publicly that I was looking at moving a disallowance motion with respect to the regulations that the Adelaide City Council was using, and indeed, according to the Supreme Court, in some cases misusing, in order to move these preachers on.

I want to say for the record that, whilst, obviously, my personal Christian faith has some sympathy with the general theme that these people espouse, I think their methods are very questionable, to say the least. I think all of us have concerns. I have not seen, but I am hearing of incidents of direct insults being made at people walking past. How that falls under the banner of Christianity, frankly, I just do not understand. That sort of behaviour, I think, is regrettable, to say the least.

Looking at both sides of this, though, this sort of somewhat contentious behaviour has obviously attracted a group of what you might call counter-protesters in order to drown out the preachers. I think the fact that this has now escalated to the point where you have got these two major groups essentially facing each other off in the confines of the mall, I think, is really undesirable. It is almost certainly the wrong place for it, so hence, I think, some sort of response is needed.

I want to make this absolutely clear: I am a strong supporter of free speech. I will never vote for anything that curtails the right of free speech. I should not even single these preachers out, but I think any person espousing any position, frankly, should have the right to say it in pretty much any circumstances, but I think there is a way of saying things and that is really the point we have got to. Hence, I think some sort of intervention is required.

Like the Hon. Mark Parnell, I commend the Hon. Stephen Wade on his attempt to address this in, I think, a fairly moderate way. Initially, the Hon. Stephen Wade moved the disallowance motion sometime ago, which this chamber supported. I was one of the votes in support of it, as was my colleague the Hon. Robert Brokenshire, and I, like the Hon. Mark Parnell, said I thought it was right and the decision of the court has vindicated that, I believe.

To cut a long story short, Family First will be supporting this bill. We believe it is a moderate measure at curtailing what is a difficult situation. I believe that the preachers, or anyone else for that matter, have the right to say what they believe to be the truth. I do not think that should be in any way prevented under any circumstances, but there is a way of putting the message forward.

I can reflect on the comments of our new Premier, made on his first day in the job yesterday. Taking the partisan nature out of this, I wholeheartedly agree with what he said in his opening ministerial statement as Premier. He made the statement that, essentially, we need to treat each other civilly in this place, and that creates an example for others in society.

I think that is right. I think sometimes we get carried away with ourselves here in terms of the sometimes rude and aggressive nature in the way we deal with each other and I think that is regrettable. I think this parliament should be above that, and I think we are seeing examples of that carried over in Rundle Mall at the moment. I think any member in this place, for example, should be able to say whatever they like essentially, but again, it comes down to the way that message is delivered.

I think what we are seeing at the moment in the mall is regrettable. The message of the Christian faith is not one that should be delivered in an offensive way. I think, if it is, then that is not right. I also think that the counter-protesters should not get off scot-free either. I am aware of some of their behaviour being offensive on many levels as well. It should be noted that they are not without blame in all of this.

To get back to this bill, I think that it provides a way forward. Obviously, the minister, the Hon. Russell Wortley has tabled just today what the government views as a solution to this problem. My understanding is that the Liberal Party is going to support that bill so that it will pass anyway, and I think we will find that this situation is resolved.

Credit where credit is due: the government has acted on this situation and I think it is well and truly time. I missed all of what the Hon. Mark Parnell said and it may, in fact, be the same issue so forgive me if it is, but I am concerned—and I may stand corrected on this—that the bill itself does not limit to specific areas and there is potential that, on my simple reading of this bill, it may be potentially misused in some situations. I am sure the Hon. Stephen Wade has an answer to that question and I formally put that question to him, and if he could address that in his summing up I would be grateful.

My final comments are that I believe that free speech should be almost absolute. We live in a society that has treasured free speech literally for thousands of years and, obviously, in recent centuries in our country, and that, as far as I am concerned, should never change. People should be allowed to do that whether they are preaching the gospel, whether they are arguing a particular political point of view or whatever other contentious perspective they may have. However, I believe that it is incumbent on all of us in this parliament and, indeed, all of us in society to do so in a simple way that is not directly intended to offend other people—and not only offend but insult other people. I do not think that that is really something that we can endorse on an ongoing basis.

These things can happen occasionally, and if one or two comments are made that might upset someone, then I think in the real world those things can happen from time to time. However, I do not think we can just allow that to be a deliberate tactic that groups can use on an ongoing basis. That being said, as I said, we intend to support this legislation. In my discussions with the Hon. Stephen Wade I think, by his own admission, it may not be perfect but it is the best option before us at this point and for that reason we support it.

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON (17:57): I rise to indicate my support for the Statutes Amendment (Public Assemblies and Addresses) Bill Introduced by the Hon. Stephen Wade. I do so in the knowledge that the Minister for State/Local Government Relations has introduced a bill to amend the Local Government Act 1999, which, on my understanding, will allow the Adelaide City Council's model by-law for the management of pedestrian malls to be implemented immediately and, hence, ahead of the busy Christmas season.

The Hon. Stephen Wade's bill attempts to provide a statutory incentive to would-be protesters to conduct their protest in a defined area, determined between the government and the local council and in a manner that is orderly and civil. The inducements include protection from civil and criminal liability arising from obstructing the area and protection from rival groups who may desire to obstruct their gathering.

This is particularly relevant given the ongoing clash between those who have been dubbed the street preachers—exactly what they are preaching I am unsure as this is not the Bible that I grew up to know—and gay rights activists and others who are appalled at the hateful message being preached. In providing inducements rather than attempting to prohibit the gatherings, on my understanding, the bill avoids any constitutional concerns, although I have no doubt that the street preachers will challenge it anyway.

The bill before us also deals, at least to my mind, quite eloquently with the use of amplification which, unlike assembling for a political purpose, is not a right and can be restricted. The bill proposes to do so by enabling a police officer to issue the user of a public address system without an authority for its use with a direction to cease broadcasting in the prescribed area. This area is gazetted by the minister after consultation with the local council and such a direction from the police officer applies for six months. A maximum penalty of $1,250 applies for each contravention, as well as the seizure of the public address system.

From my understanding, Adelaide City Council's model by-law for the management of pedestrian malls is limited to Rundle Mall and does not address the numerous issues that the current preacher saga has identified. At best, it will push the street preachers to other prominent city locations where they will fall outside the regulation proposed and hence be able to again amplify their views. It certainly will not resolve the clash between the preachers and the gay rights activities, which has, on occasion, turned violent.

This morning, I met with the Adelaide Lord Mayor, Mr Stephen Yarwood, who relayed his support for the government's bill. I understand his position entirely. The street preachers saga is causing significant economic and social damage to Adelaide's iconic Rundle Mall and, as the months have dragged by, the Lord Mayor has been criticised for failing to take action. Average people in the street do not understand why such protests are permitted in the mall. However, permitted by the Adelaide City Council they are not, and the council is currently hamstrung and unable to act.

It is for this reason, regardless of whether this bill is successful today, I will be supporting the government bill tomorrow, although I indicate my desire for this issue to be re-opened in the new year. I make the point that it does not have to be either/or on these pieces of legislation because they can both work quite well together. The government's bill is a short-term solution, and it is a good solution, whereas the Hon. Stephen Wade's bill is more of a holistic, long-term solution to what will probably pop up again.

I would like to reiterate what other members in this place have said. I have seen footage of the conduct of both sides of these protesters. I was brought up to believe that two wrongs never make a right, and I think that probably the antagonism that has come along with this has escalated the situation and that both sides of this protest need to be held to account. I believe that the Hon. Stephen Wade's bill will also address both sides of that as well. With those words, I support this bill. I would also like to congratulate the Hon. Stephen Wade on the hard work he has put into this and his ability to consult.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. G.E. Gago.