Page 4023 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 24 October 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Commonwealth Grants Commission, accounting for quite a deal of that funding. Much of it is to do with the national capital aspects and a series of other things.
I accept that there are reasons for us to consider that we may not have to cut our police back to being level with the other States, at 67 per cent. Whatever the case, thanks to the Alliance Government being a signatory to the agreement with the Australian Federal Police, before too long we will be in a position in which we will have to suffer significant cuts to our police force. Instead of dealing with this in the media, as Mr Collaery would like to say, for cheap political point scoring, it is appropriate for us to do it through a select committee so that we can assess the best way of handling cuts in funds, if they need to be made. I assure you that they will need to be made. The Chief Minister has already indicated in this house that significant cuts need to be made to our police force.
The second point of the motion concerns the standard of effective policing achieved within the ACT police force, and the necessity for improvement therein. To have an elected group to attempt to assess the standards achieved by the police, I think, is a quite appropriate way of looking at them. It is an important role, particularly when we have, in effect, taken on a new role for our police force. The Attorney-General, Bernard Collaery, certainly, constantly talks about the high standards and the effectiveness of the ACT police force. The community, I believe, has a very good and positive attitude towards the police in the ACT, as, indeed, I do. I believe that, generally, the police are effective. Sometimes, of course, there are articles, like that referred to this morning, that cast some doubt on that.
With reference to the particular agreement that has been made, Mr Collaery has indicated some problems with it in an article - again, in this morning's paper but on a different page - where he is talking about the Federal police in effect taking on an FBI role. In that article, Mr Collaery is reported as saying:
Such a new role for the AFP may well syphon off some of our most promising officers and promote the Australian Federal Police into an FBI-like role.
Mr Collaery then talked about the decision to do that and the effect on the ACT. Mr Collaery is also reported as saying:
The decision on the commission's proposal was taken at the Federal, States and Territories Attorney-Generals' meeting in Alice Springs last June.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .