Thursday, 14 November 2019

 Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (18:34): My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Over the past month we have heard horror stories of New South Wales police misusing stripsearch powers. There is conclusive evidence that three out of four, or 75 per cent of, drug dog indications are incorrect. We know that officers can manipulate the dogs to give an indication in order to justify searches against anyone they do not like the look of. Just last week the New South Wales coroner warned that drug dogs and strip searches increase risks but do little to reduce drug use.

We have heard several findings of illegal use of search powers. In some cases police were illegally searching 16-year-old girls. Now we are hearing reports that hundreds of young girls, some as young as 12 and 13, are being stripped naked by police in search of drugs. This is in New South Wales. There is no excuse for this behaviour. The New South Wales Minister for Police and Emergency Services responded to reports of searches being conducted against underage girls by saying he would want police to stripsearch his children if they were suspected of breaking the law. He went on to say that parents would be ‘pretty happy’ if their children were stripsearched and found with drugs. I do not think that many parents would agree with him there.

Strip searches are invasive and humiliating. If someone who was not a police officer stripsearched children, they would be guilty of a serious offence, and rightly so, yet police take this action against thousands of people every year, the majority of whom do not possess illicit substances. The harms of strip searches outweigh the harms prevented by strip searches. No evidence exists that these types of strip searches prevent any harm, because they do not. They do the opposite. The New South Wales coroner found that New South Wales police use of sniffer dogs contributed to the death of Alex Ross-King. Police searches should not contribute to young people dying.

Despite all this we are now hearing reports that Victoria Police are cracking down on festival goers this summer in Victoria. Assistant Commissioner Weir claimed that there will be more officers, drug buses, surveillance drones and drug dogs. That means more strip searches. This is the behaviour of a police state. The Liberal Democrats do not support these actions, and we specifically condemn the use of stripsearch powers against children. I call on the minister to make available to the public the guidelines for Victoria Police use of sniffer dogs and to reassure the public that their children are not being stripped naked by police.