December 22, 2001
Sydney Morning Herald
by David Marr
No sniffer dogs
came through Bob Carr's Christmas drinks on Tuesday. The night
was young and the town with all its pleasures lay before us, but while
we drank beer on the 41st floor of the Governor Phillip Tower, no
beagles would sniff us, no cops would order us to turn out our pockets
or strip to our underpants to be searched for drugs - though to be
fair, that last humiliation seems reserved for black kids in the streets
of towns out west.
NSW is now the state of the sniffer dog. Off the tops of their
heads, Labor advisers can't think of another place in the world where
drug dogs and their police handlers roam the community without warrants.
At airports and prisons, yes, but not in pubs, clubs, railway stations,
grandstands and buses as they do now in NSW.
After the Olympics, good homes could have been found for these expensive
animals. They might have settled down as loved pets and valued
companions. Instead, a new market was found for their talents.
The rhetoric is all about catching drug dealers; the reality is all
about pulling in users.
They do. The stats are a dream. Don't believe anyone who
tells you these dogs aren't very good.
Sure, from time to time they detect Oxo cubes and chicken burgers,
but they can sniff out tiny quantities of hard drugs. Smelly
old cannabis is child's play for a puppy. Dope is also, of course,
the drug 40 per cent of Australians use every year.
Air your clothes well after a party. Redfern Legal Centre is
warning the public that a jacket worn at a party where dope is smoked
can earn you an embarrassing public encounter with a dog and handler.
This is the routine. You're standing on Wynyard Station at peak
hour, or the dance floor at DCM in Oxford Street, and the sniffer
dog bunts - touches you with its nose - or stops and sits before you.
The police handler then says words to this effect: "This is a drug-detecting
dog. We have reason to believe you may have drugs in your possession."
You are then directed to turn out your pockets, your bag, take off
your shirt, etc, and be searched. All in public.
A NSW Labor staffer was caught by a sniffer dog at Wynyard a couple
of months ago. He had a small amount of marijuana in his pocket
and spent some hours in police cells. He works for a Government
with a policy of keeping users of trivial amounts of dope out of the
slammer. Didn't work. Not with the dogs around.
In October, the Deputy Chief Magistrate in the Local Court declared
the dogs were breaching Article 17 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights: "No-one shall be subjected to arbitrary
or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence,
nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. Everyone
has the right to the protection of the law against such interference
or attacks."
To overturn this pesky decision, Labor and the Coalition combined
in Macquarie Street in December to pass the Police Powers ( Drug Detection
Dog ) Act. Only the Democrats and Greens voted against this
bill. There was loads of skylarking in the debate.
The Hon John Jobling ( Liberal ): "The dogs are highly skilled and
highly trained."
The Hon Michael Costa ( Minister for Police ): "And they are cute."
Jobling: "They are much more handsome than the Minister for Police."
Ba-boom.
The bill becomes law on New Year's Day. The Attorney-General,
Bob Debus, is proud of its civil liberties provisions. Dogs
can continue to sniff in licensed nightclubs, bars, parades and festivals
but will need a warrant to sniff in restaurants. Cocaine heads
out on the town on Friday nights take note: stick to restaurants.
All elections in NSW are law and order elections. God knows
what bizarre and cruel laws will be passed in the next 15 months before
the state goes to the polls. There is no doubt the dogs work.
But no-one in the law and order brigade asks the only question that
matters: are they worth it?
