Page 4060 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
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The Neighbourhood Watch program in the ACT is working very well; it has involved many thousands of people. The comment by Mr Connolly about Neighbourhood Watch being vocal law and order activists could, of course, be taken two ways. They are active in bringing about certain reform and changes, and it is wonderful to see people in community groups doing just that. Neighbourhood Watch particularly have been working to bring about a greater cooperation between the community and the police. I think most people agree that we will never have an effective police force unless they are supported by the community. We are lucky in the ACT to have a community that very strongly supports their police force.
That brings me to the question of budget cuts. Recently Mr Connolly was reported as suggesting that the public meetings the Liberal Party arranged on the police budget cuts - and I commend them on that - were not particularly representative of the community. We have surveyed recently the community's will on the police budget cuts. The question asked whether people were for or against police budget cuts. Some 200 people were questioned in the shopping areas in the city and Woden, and the results were 79 per cent against budget cuts for police, 20 per cent for, and one per cent informal.
The findings in the Community Policing Advisory Committee report have been borne out very strongly by that survey. It shows that people are very strongly behind their police and they do not wish to see budget cuts. Other surveys done by Frank Small show various aspects of concern by people in the ACT about the police force. It was encouraging to find that a large number of people across very many important areas thought the police were doing a good job and were doing it better and better. There were very few areas where the community had concerns about not being well looked after.
We need consultation in these matters. There has not been enough consultation with the police force. I do not wish to turn this matter of public importance into a political debate, as it were, or a political ideological debate or party political debate. We all agree that we need a good police force, but we need to work together in this Assembly. It is not a matter of carping at the ALP or anybody else. Let us work together and see what can be done to enable us not to cut the police budget. When we look at budget cuts, $1.2m may seem to be not a great deal. However, in real terms, we could consider a situation where policing funding could be increased rather than decreased. At least let us maintain police budgeting.
Some consultation has been going on since the budget cuts were announced. Indeed, a draft agreement has been drawn up between the Australian Federal Police and the Police Association on changing certain management practices or improving them if they can. One is a review of rosters. Another is the potential savings that can be made by not requiring police to attend for long periods in courts, and Mr Stefaniak and a number of other members of this Assembly would understand that. In my time as a policeman, I must have spent literally months, day after day, sitting in courts, waiting around, not necessarily to any benefit - - -
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