Legislative Council, Tuesday 6 August 2024

Ms FORREST (Murchison) - Mr President, I, as some other members in this place, have debated this notion, or this suggestion, previously, and I do not intend to go back over all of the things I said then because there is no need, other than to say that I support the bill as it is printed.

As has been said by other members, not most directly, but we in this Chamber are very privileged. We do not have to ask for help and money. All of us have a home. All of us have food, clothes and pretty much anything we want to get by.

We also know more and more that many people, even some who may have had food, housing, plenty of clothes, or whatever they needed to get by, are either really struggling or don't have it. I know the member for Hobart's comment that when she first moved to Hobart 35 years ago that she did not see homeless people and you did not.

In Melbourne, when I visit Melbourne to see family there, there are always homeless people in the street and it saddens me greatly. Regardless of the circumstances that brought them there, everyone deserves a roof over their head and a safe place to live and sleep. Sleeping on the street anywhere - arguably it may be safer in Melbourne because there are more people around - than sleeping in a small town where you are perhaps more at risk.

In any event, it should be an absolute priority to remove the need to beg and part of that is removing the provision that begging is a criminal offence. Begging is a last resort. I cannot imagine for myself thankfully to be a position so dire that you have to beg people for the basics. And part of that is removing the provision that begging is a criminal offence. Begging is a last resort. I can't imagine for myself, thankfully, that I can ever have to imagine what it must be like to be in a position so dire that you have to actually beg people for the basics. I don't think any of us in this Chamber can truly contemplate what that would actually be like to live that way. We might see it; we might walk past it. But to live it, we don't have any idea what that's like.

I did speak about this in the previous debates that we have had on this bill, and I will speak about it again because it goes into the member for Hobart's comment that we did not see people begging in Tasmania. We do see a lot more now or people who may not be actually actively begging but are obviously in a dire situation and in need of assistance.

I can't remember how many years ago, but it was before Covid, so a few years ago now: a woman just appeared overnight in the street in Wynyard - the main street in Wynyard. She was clearly a little bit dishevelled, a bit unkempt perhaps. No-one knew her story. No-one knew who she was. No-one knew why she was there - other than she appeared to have nowhere else to go. She may or may not have been actively begging all the time, but she was obviously in need. She was near the post office, quite close, and also near the fence to the local primary school, the Catholic primary school. That fence backs onto the main street. She was opposite the pharmacy. She was opposite the news agency and I got countless calls into my office which is down the other end of the main street and countless people coming into the office to express their concern for her, not to ask to move her along, to get rid of her - but to say, do you know what's wrong? What can we do to help? I mean, surely someone can help this woman. Many of them told me they had already called the police. I did not know what else to do and then called the police to see what help the police may be able to give. I did not call the police to say come and get rid of this woman - she is making the place look untidy; or call the police to move her so I can feel safer going into the post office. People in my town - some of them who probably do not have a lot themselves - would go and buy her a coffee and some food from over the road at the cafe.

This went on for a probably about a week. And then someone gave her a tent, which was really generous. And then she camped in the 'cow park', which is called the cow park because there are cows - not real cows - like cow statues in there. She was camping there and causing no harm to anybody, but it was still a challenge for her and for others, other people. So that is not okay that she is camping there because obviously she should have a house. So what are we doing? We worked with Anglicare and other services to help her. Eventually they will help. The police were very helpful, very helpful on that occasion to find out who she was, where she came from, why she was there and how we could assist to try to find family members to try to help her to be in a place that was safe for her.

Now when we had in the briefing and I go to this because in the briefing we were told that there was, I cannot remember the period of time it was, 57 calls to police in the last 12 months or reports of people who were begging. We do not know if they are 57 separate reports or separate people. I will ask this at the briefing: of those 57 reports, were they reports asking the police to assist in removing that person or moving them away from a business or a particular location because they make others feel uncomfortable or unsafe? Or were they reports to say, what can we do to help this person, as happened in Wynyard with that woman? I do not know and we do not know because we cannot tell that sort of level of data about all the records of those 57 instances.

In any event, I would almost guarantee there were a not insignificant number of those calls to police to say, 'What can we do? This person is there begging, surely you have a role to play here in helping, we are not sure we can approach the person'. Police do have the skills and the training. Police are so good at some of this stuff, seeing a person who is not in a good shape, not in a good place, people maybe with a mental health disorder that people feel a little bit reluctant to approach because they are not skilled in that area, or someone who may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. People may not feel particularly safe going to approach them, they are not really sure how to handle that.

Police are trained to assist with this. They are not the mental health experts, they are not the drug and alcohol counsellor, but they know how to interact with these people to assist them to get to those services. I thank the police for that work they do. They do an incredible job in helping some of our people that often, through no fault of their own, find themselves in difficult circumstances. Sometimes there may be things that they have done to contribute to that, but I am not here to judge that.

I support the bill as it is because what it is is simple. We are saying that begging is not a criminal offence. Simple. We tried before to say it was simply that, but no, it got sat downstairs when it went back downstairs and never got progressed. Let us not let that happen this time. Let us actually get on with it and do what we know we should. People have spoken and it seems we all agree what we should do.

I also know that there are some people in our community who are very intolerant of people who may not have what they have, who are so wrapped up in their own privilege they do not like to be reminded that some people may not. I have had people from my community say to me, 'They should be moved along, they should not be there, they make me feel unsafe'. I say, 'How do they make you feel unsafe?'. 'Well, they just should not be there.' 'Why?' 'They should not be there.' This is terrible intolerance and I find it hard to talk to those people. I say think about what might have brought that person there, and I am really sorry that they are there, because I am not sure why they are there and I do not know what I can do to help them particularly.

Sadly, we know that in some places where you are visiting, very high tourist areas, particularly around Europe, you will get beggars who are not beggars. That tends to shadow or perhaps cloud the notion a bit of all beggars being genuine. When we see people begging in Tasmania, they are genuine. We have a responsibility to make those people who are the at the lowest point in their life not be criminals because of that. That is what we are here to do.

I am a little bit agnostic about the review clause. I believe we should leave it as it is. If the government feels that they need to review this to perhaps bring in other powers, as has been suggested, to effectively enable move on powers for people who are passively begging, then they will do that work. I have no doubt they will do that work.

When they do that work, they will consult with all the relevant people. I hope they would consult with people like TasCOSS and those people, that organisation to look after these people and assist these people in their time of need. They will talk to their police colleagues and look at what they actually need. Maybe it is more resources in the mental health space. Maybe we need more houses. Maybe there are lots of things that we need that we simply do not have enough of. We certainly do not have enough mental health services in my community, and I am sure many others, to assist people who may have been brought to that low point in their life through unmanaged, unsupported, untreated mental health challenges. That is not their fault. That is our fault. That is the system's fault.

I will probably be in the chair and I hopefully do not need to get out too many times to express my view. In this proposed amendment from the Leader on behalf of the government, I see no reason to support any of it at this point. If the government and the police really think it is necessary, then let us do it properly, and not conflate these two matters. One could argue it is stretching the friendship even beyond what the bill was intended to do here, brought up from the lower House by the member for Hobart. I think in that point that it is unnecessary.

I listened to the briefing and I heard the positions put by the police. I am sure the Leader will reiterate the police's position. Even when the police are asking for additional powers on something that seems relatively minor, we need to be careful. If you want to look at the erosion of trust and the erosion of what our democracy is, it starts with really small steps. You might say we are seeking to introduce a very small step while we are in a briefing on a bill that has been sitting around for some time now, and tell us the police need these powers. With all due respect to the police here and the police out there, I do not think that is the way to do it.

The erosion of our democracy starts in small steps. We should think very carefully about any suggestion or any request to increase police powers. There are reasons why we should and when we should, but it should be done in a way that is not hooked onto the back of some other bill that is simply to decriminalise begging. We should make the case in a way that reflects full and meaningful consultation, acknowledging that the police have laid no charges for begging since 2018. They have not actually been required to move anybody on either. I assume the people we are talking about here are people who are actively begging, who were reported to police, unless the police saw them as they were going about their business. To think that we might try to basically criminalise by default a person passively begging on the bones of their arse, that they could be asked to be moved on, is extraordinary in my view.

I will not be supporting the amendments if they are put, but I support the bill as it stands.