Page 1605 - Week 06 - Thursday, 3 May 1990
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funding provided currently for the ACT, a sum equivalent to the annual cost of running the Australian Federal Police. That has currently been assessed as something in the order of $42m, and of course our budget will be incremented to cover that cost. It is not expected that we take on the policing function and absorb that in the existing budget that we have, so we would not be financially disadvantaged in taking responsibility for the police.
On the second part of the question, which I guess was the main thrust of it, as to whether we have the AFP or the AFP, the bottom line answer to the question is yes, it is the AFP or the AFP. The Government has considered in general terms whether there were any other practical options to going by this route. We even considered such questions as whether there was some police force that we could contract other than the Australian Federal Police. We very quickly assessed that, while it might be desirable in the interests of the community to do away with the services of the Australian Federal Police on 1 July and attempt to set up our own police force, for example, as an alternative, it simply was impractical. It could not be done in the time and would have meant having to reproduce and replicate a lot of the facilities that are currently available.
In the time available it does resolve itself down to a question in the immediate future of accepting the services of the Australian Federal Police on some sort of suitable and acceptable contractual arrangement. So the negotiations with the Commonwealth over the last two or three months have been confined to that question, to get the best contractual arrangement so that the Australian Federal Police can continue to provide services to us.
That is not to say that in the longer term there may not be further consideration of that question. When we get our budget in order and the new mini-economy of the ACT has settled down, it may well be that we will want to raise the question again of re-creating the old community police force that we used to have, which was an excellent police force and which it may be possible for us to re-create in the longer term.
MR MOORE: I ask a supplementary question. Considering, Chief Minister, that you have said that this other possibility may well exist, is it reasonable then to assume that the contract which is being forged at the moment will have a short-term date - say, a three-year or five-year contract, something along those lines - so that this can be reconsidered?
MR KAINE: The discussions so far have been, generally speaking, at the officer level. We have not yet got to the point of discussions at the political level. I do not know whether that question has been brought up, but I will certainly make sure that the question is introduced into the negotiations and that we do not enter into a contract that is not time limited.
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