Page 1573 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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I thought the statistics that Mr Humphries produced amply demonstrated the latter and justified the former. But Mr Connolly does not want to listen to that. He did not listen to that. He was so defensive that it showed. In other words, Mr Connolly obviously feels in his heart that what Mr Humphries said is valid and that he should be taking note of it, but that from a Government ideological viewpoint it is not acceptable that he should do so. So he spoke without much conviction, and I think it came through.
Madam Speaker, Mr Connolly also could not restrain himself from quoting my comments about a reduction in the police budget. What he said is true. Three years ago I did say - and I meant it - that the police function should not be quarantined from the general processes of budget scrutiny. Of course it should not. I am not resiling from that now. But, within all of that, when a government is doing its budget, it has to look at the reality of the day. It is mindless to say, "Three years ago Mr Kaine said that you should not quarantine the police budget and therefore, to this day, that is immutably true". It is never true forever that you should quarantine - - -
Mr Berry: So what would you cut?
MR KAINE: We will talk about Mr Berry. Budgeting requires that you look at the circumstances of the day. You change your budgetary strategy - you have to be flexible - from year to year, depending on what is happening. To hold the hard line that year after year you are going to blindly apply a 2 per cent cut across the board, which is what this Government always resorts to in the final analysis - a 2 per cent cut across the board will fix the problem - is mindless. It does not achieve the objective. Within all of that, if you are not looking at what is happening in your hospitals, in your schools and in your community where crime is occurring but you are still saying, "We will have a 2 per cent cut across the board", you are ignoring the needs of the society for which you are supposed to be budgeting. It is mindless and it does not achieve the objective.
Mr Humphries produced what I thought were some fairly compelling statistics. Mr Connolly said, "We do not believe them. The ABS is not right, and the police agree with me". Maybe he would listen to his own police statistics. The Australian Federal Police annual report gives similar figures. They are certainly for the year 1992-93, because we have not had the 1993-94 report yet; but I am sure that when we get that report it will produce more of the same statistics.
The statistics from the Australian Federal Police annual report for 1992-93 show that offences against good order, for example, rose by 41 per cent in one year; that fraud and misappropriation both increased by massive amounts; that total burglary, theft and fraud offences rose by 15.6 per cent. Mr Connolly would say, "They say 15.6 per cent, but if it starts from a low base that is not much". In this case, however, the figures showed an increase from 18,360 cases to 21,240. This is in a community of only 300,000 people. Does Mr Connolly accept those figures, or does he say that he does not believe them and that Mr Dawson does not either? These are the police's own figures, and I accept them.
In quoting his statistics, Mr Humphries said that one in 20 people in the ACT are victims of crime. I would add that one in 20 are victims of reported crime. I know of a lot of petty crime, minor crime, which is not reported. If somebody tries to jemmy open a car door in a parking lot, people do not report it. They go and get it fixed and write it off.
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