Page 3576 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 24 November 2021
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It is important as well that we provide the police with the legislative backup to do their job. Certainly, there are a couple of issues. One is the issue of anti-consorting laws that police have called for; we have had chief police officers calling for those laws for years. I note that the Chief Police Officer has been silent on that, as I understand it, but that has been a call so that they can fight the bikie war happening in this town without having one hand tied behind their back. That bikie war occurred because we were seen as a safe haven for bikie gangs whilst New South Wales and every other state and territory in Australia have introduced those laws.
It was clear from the legal advice that was provided to the bikies, from memory, that that created a safe haven and created a bikie war, and the government did not give the police the power that they needed to deal with it. Again, it caused further problems as they were, through Taskforce Nemesis, then stretched even thinner on the ground than they ever should have been.
The other legislative backup that I was really disappointed was not supported was the bail law reform, which was rejected by this government through the Attorney-General. I have a quote from our frontline police, from the AFPA:
It’s clear that the Attorney-General values the rights of recidivist and dangerous offenders over community safety and those hard-working first responders who protect and administer health outcomes in the ACT.
All this draft bill was trying to achieve was a fair and balanced judicial process, once a matter went to court. Instead, the Attorney-General has sided with those who assault first responders.
It is a pretty extensive press release that expresses disappointment. It states:
Over the last few months, four ACT Policing officers have been hospitalised due to assaults. Three of these officers were attacked and seriously injured by an alleged offender on bail for assaulting first responders on a previous occasion.
As it stands right now, Director of Public Prosecutions prosecutors have to fight to remand someone who assaults a first responder with one hand tied behind their back.
Whether it is effectively resourcing the police, whether it is making sure that our police have the right facilities from which to operate, in terms of both the condition of those facilities and the location of those facilities, or whether it is in terms of providing to them the legislative backup that they are calling for, they have every right to feel let down by this government. They need more from the minister than some tricksy, ridiculous comment, saying, “You voted against the police budget; therefore you don’t like the police.”
It is a bit like the motion yesterday on the Greens’ Defence policy, and the Greens amendment. The police are not stupid. Our police are smart people. They know what is going on because they live it every day. They are not going to be conned by those glib, smart-arse responses that you get from the minister.
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