Page 390 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 21 February 1990
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it, and that that is a better solution than hiring the services of some other police force.
Mr Speaker, I submit that the proposal put forward by the Opposition was not serious. It simply wanted to use this as a vehicle somehow to finger the Government. It did not succeed; it will not succeed. The amendment put forward by Mr Collaery represents the true, achievable, sensible position, and I suggest that members of the Assembly support it and let us get on with it.
MR BERRY (11.41): I think the most important issue about this motion which has not been discussed is the fact that it has been on the agenda for a long time. The Government has had ample opportunity to talk with the Opposition members about a way forward for policing in the ACT and a way forward which would be acceptable to the broader community in terms of the information available on what the community could expect from the police in this Territory.
Policing is a community concern and community policing is an important issue for all walks of life in the Territory. Those concerns have been highlighted by recent reports about the quality of policing in the Territory, and I have no doubt that what Mr Stefaniak has said in relation to the general quality of policing in the ACT is correct. It is a good quality police force, but there are some aberrations which cause concern amongst the community. I think that the community deserves to be properly informed about the police force that it inherits - and will have to pay for in due course - before policing is taken over by the ACT Government.
It is a government problem, as Mr Humphries has said. This Government talks about consultative government over and over again, but surely consultative, open government is about negotiating positions with the players in this Assembly and members of the community who are concerned. Those negotiations have not happened, and what seems to be in store for the people of Canberra is a plan which is being developed behind closed doors. Irrespective of the sorts of criticism that we have heard from the Government benches about the Opposition when it was in government, the fact of the matter is that the community still expects to be informed about the police force that it will inherit. Those financial issues are important, and again, the community needs to be informed about those issues.
Mr Speaker, some criticism was levelled at members of the Opposition about the committee system and about how those who were then in opposition had a committee system imposed on them. To be quite frank, I find that unbelievable. I can never ever recall such a period of bleating and whining as occurred from those members opposite when the committee system was set up. I recall all the trouble that the then Labor Government went to to accommodate the wishes and political imperatives, if you like - and in some cases the lack of political imperatives - of all those members
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