New police powers targeting intoxicated and disorderly conduct come into force this weekend
NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell and Minister for Police Mike Gallacher announced today new laws to crack down on intoxicated and disorderly conduct will come into force this October long weekend.
“The NSW Liberals & Nationals Government made the commitment to introduce an offence of intoxicated and disorderly conduct, we have now delivered it and it comes into force this weekend,” Mr O’Farrell said.
“The NSW Government is committed to targeting alcohol-related violence and anti-social behaviour. It’s one of the biggest challenges and problems facing NSW Police and the community,” he said.
“People should have fun, but not at the expense of other people’s night out and that is why we have given the police the powers in the form of a new intoxicated and disorderly offence.
“So my message to partygoers is if you’re going out this weekend – do it responsibly because Police have new powers to crackdown on drunk and disorderly conduct,” he said.
Mr Gallacher said the NSW Government recently strengthened the move-on powers to apply to individuals rather than merely groups of three or more.
Under the new laws enforced from this weekend, if a person is given a move-on direction for intoxicated and disorderly conduct, they will be committing an offence if they resume or continue that disorderly conduct while intoxicated and within 6 hours of the original direction being given.
In most cases the offending individual will be given a criminal infringement notice of $200.
Minister Gallacher said it will not be a crime to be drunk in public; however it will be a crime to be intoxicated and disorderly in a public place within six hours of receiving a police direction to move on.
“The intoxicated person must be acting in a way that is dangerous to themselves, to others or to property.
“Every weekend hospital emergency departments across NSW see the impact of intoxicated and disorderly behaviour, and the cost of dealing with the resulting injuries represents a burden to NSW taxpayers.
“The new provisions, in addition to the boosting of move-on powers, will help people have a good night without being the victim of the anti-social behaviour of others,” Mr Gallacher said.
Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said the new powers were yet another mechanism for police to deal with those who show no consideration for others with their anti-social, disruptive behaviour.
“This type of behaviour upsets community standards and we can now ensure people take personal responsibility for the way they behave,” Commissioner Scipione said.
It is all about adding more weight to public misgivings for people who are intoxicated and are acting in an offensive manner and we are happy to use this as yet another tool to help us do our job,” he said.
