Page 4069 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
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A male and a female police officer were quite seriously injured at a domestic brawl in Belconnen that also involved a few members of the family - I think a husband and a couple of his brothers were there and quite drunk - before other cars came. At least the cars came; but, with the way these cuts were going to be administered, that might not have happened and we might have had a very serious situation on our hands. That was the human reality of the situation. There has been unprecedented pressure from the police, including what I would describe as responsible industrial action.
Mr Connolly: Backing the unions. Good to see.
MR STEFANIAK: I completely disagree with the Canberra Times editorial in that regard. Sometimes the Canberra Times is very favourable to the Labor Party, Mr Connolly; I think that is fairly well known. This is no different. In fact, talking about Canberra Times editorials, I can remember in April 1989 the Canberra Times being very much in favour of move-on powers; yet, when I introduced the Bill, in its July editorial that same year it was dead against them. I would not set too much store by that editorial.
Mr Stevenson: They should be moved on.
MR STEFANIAK: Maybe they should be. At any rate, that industrial campaign, which did not affect the safety of Canberra's citizens - they were still being booked; the police just did it in a different way - along with community reaction and, indeed, the Opposition's reaction, made this Government, which had been very arrogant on the issue and refused to consider looking at cuts in the budget, look at the issue again. I was pleased to see Mr Connolly offer his services to chair the meeting. I offered to do it, but I did not get any response from Mr Connolly. I suppose that is understandable. At least he finally seemed to see a little sense. The dispute is not over yet, but I hope that commonsense will prevail.
In the last couple of weeks we have seen this Government accept that the cuts should come from across the board. If the Police Association, the police themselves, the Opposition and, indeed, the community at large are prepared to see the numbers of staff on the books drop by about 10, if that means that the police can still do their job and is acceptable to the police, and if it is acceptable in terms of meeting this Government's requirement of $1.2m, that is far preferable to a 20 per cent cut in the operational budget. The police are not really crippled by losing 2.25 per cent across the board. They would prefer not to - I think most of us would prefer them not to - but, if the bottom line is that that is to happen, so be it, as long as it is fairly applied.
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