Page 1541 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 2 May 1990
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With reference to the transfer of police, it is extremely difficult to find any information on the Government's policy. I really do not know what they intend. We have some vague ideas. If they know, they do not seem to have told anybody, particularly not the general public.
Mr Collaery: It's in the Hansard.
MR MOORE: Again, there is no consultation. I am glad Mr Collaery interjects about the Hansard, because I shall refer to it shortly. The Government has assured us that the Federal Police will continue to police the ACT, with only the detail of financial aspects to be worked out. There have been suggestions from Senator Tate as far back as August 1989 that the ACT should buy its own police force, along the lines of the contracts between the Canadian Government and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The indications are that some negotiations are going on in that direction. However, the Alliance Government has refused to set up a select committee to inquire into the policing needs of the ACT. The motion to establish a committee noted the internal, ongoing negotiations being conducted between the ACT Government and the Federal Government.
I refer Mr Collaery to the Hansard, on which he commented, at page 375 of 21 February. Mr Wood moved, on behalf of Mr Whalan, the following motion:
That this Assembly calls on the Government to establish a select committee empowered to negotiate and finalise the arrangements whereby policing in the ACT is handed over to the ACT Government ...
Mr Collaery moved an amendment to that motion, that all words after "That" be omitted - in other words, he changed the whole nature of the motion - and the following be substituted:
this Assembly notes current working party negotiations with the Federal Government concerning the need to finalise arrangements for the policing of the ACT.
The working party arrangements on policing, we were then informed, were to have senior public servants negotiating with some senior police officers. Where is the community consultation in that? The sorts of questions which the community and this Assembly need to ask and to which we need to find answers are: For how long will a contract be let? Will that contract then be renewable? Will we have the power to cancel it at the end of, for example, three years? If we are unhappy with the way the policing has been carried out, will we have the power to change the conditions and make much more stringent conditions on that contract? If we are very happy with how it is going, could we ease some of the conditions of the contract that we are going to let?
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