Page 3552 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 September 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I want to stress particularly the situation of the AME school. They do not have the strong alma mater network that the grammar schools have. They have sought to develop modern education at an egalitarian level. They are hard hit by this cut. I can think of several illustrious graduates from that school. One is a son of a prominent Canberra clergyman. He is a marvellous graduate of that school and a great credit abroad in his postgraduate studies. I trust that, wherever he is, he will deplore this action.
Mr Acting Speaker, on policing we again strongly criticise this budget. The Government has overlooked the fact that the Federal Government remains primarily responsible for policing in the Territory. The Australian Federal Police Act has not been amended to take that responsibility from the Federal Government. The agreement between the then ACT Government and the Federal Government for the provision of police services to the Territory from 1 July 1990 was predicated on the view that both parties would set up a lengthy transitional review process to examine policing functions. The Territory was apprehensive that it would take over an overfunded organisation and likewise the Commonwealth was keen to ensure that it retained a community police force component of a national policing function.
The Commonwealth saw this arrangement as providing career depth and general policing skills as a basis for its more specialist national policing functions. For its part, the Territory made clear that its prime interest was in developing a semiautonomous community policing component. The alternative for the Territory, namely, a stand-alone police force, was impractical and financially imprudent pending the transition and the outcome of a series of functional reviews.
The Follett budget decision to unilaterally, on a non-consultative basis with the community, proceed to cuts outside the transitional review arrangements spelt out between the governments was premature and unnecessary.
Mr Connolly: Your Chief Minister promised to do it last year. He said it. It is in Hansard and in the press: "We will cut the police".
Mr Jensen: He did not say that it was going to happen.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: Order, Mr Connolly and Mr Jensen!
MR COLLAERY: He protesteth much. Any identified overexpenditure at this stage should have been the subject of further transitional negotiations with the Commonwealth and not at the expense of community policing. We saw again a tag-along government tag along and not have a go at the Commonwealth to renegotiate the transitional basis for the funding. The ACT community policing strategy, which we believed had the support of the Government, is based on a
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .