IF THE SMELL FOLLOWS YOU EVERYWHERE, YOU WON'T BE ALONE

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?