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The restructuring of the Major Crime Squad and the Legal Services Branch will see some 24 employees redirected evenly to the four police districts of Canberra. Of the six in each district, four have already been deployed in beat policing. One more will be deployed in another month's time, and the remaining one in each district will be devoted to legal services. Members will be aware that the Legal Services Branch of the AFP has already been restructured. I am advised that the average number of jobs being done by each member of the Major Crime Squad in the period before it was abolished, since 1 July last year, was four. That is four in a period of approximately nine months. I am advised that very few of those jobs that the Major Crime Squad was performing related to really major crimes such as murders, bank robberies or things of that kind. There were some significant crimes, and some matters which certainly took some time; but the average number of crimes investigated by each member of that squad in that period was four. Some five officers actually did one job each in that nine-month period.

A better approach than that which was in existence before we came to office is one similar to that in New South Wales, where they have four regional crime squads. In the case of a major crime those squads pool their resources with other squads to form task forces. An example, of course, is the Task Force Air, which has been looking into the backpacker murders in the Belanglo State Forest. Canberra's case load will be substantially handled, as it is now, by the district crime branches - the CIB - which already investigate most ACT crime anyway. For example, of the two murders committed in the last nine months in the ACT, one has been investigated and, I think, substantially resolved by the Woden detectives, not by the Major Crime Squad. The other matter is very likely to be handled by the New South Wales authorities rather than the ACT ones.

This restructuring means putting 24 police officers into the role which they are best trained to play, and that is providing on-the-ground policing services. That is not in any way to downgrade their capacities or suggest that they are not capable of doing the job that they were doing before. Of course they are and they were. But it is important that their resources and the talents and skills they have built up be available not just in a particular isolated pool but to all police in the Territory. I believe, Mr Speaker, that this is a move which is going to see an improvement in the quality of policing in the ACT. We will certainly consider how other such developments in the way in which policing in the ACT is conducted might be appropriately investigated; but those sorts of moves will not be examined until such time as the Legal Affairs Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the appropriate arrangements for an ACT police commissioner, concludes its report and presents it to the Assembly.

MR KAINE: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Minister, this proposal has elicited quite a deal of ill-informed comment and criticism, particularly from the Opposition. Can you tell us whether there are any other similar proposals of beneficial restructuring coming down the pipe for the ACT police?

MR HUMPHRIES: I can indicate to Mr Kaine that there have been suggestions - and I put it no more strongly than that at this stage - that squads such as the Drug Squad and the Fraud Squad ought to be similarly re-examined. I have formed no view about that at this stage. As I have indicated, I intend to await the results of the Legal Affairs Committee inquiry into this general area. I will consult with the police about the appropriate decision to be made after that report is received.

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