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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 7 Hansard (19 October) . . Page.. 1885 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

This gave me real hope that we would get our Police Commissioner very soon. However, I am of the opinion - and I know that others here feel the same way - that no further structural reform should take place until we have our own commissioner and therefore have a real say in policy decisions. These opinions have been made well known to both the Minister and the commissioner. All of this makes the announcement last week of further restructuring within the ACT police force more disappointing for me.

It is not that the changes may not be good ideas or that they may not work, but they have been done with the full knowledge that an Assembly committee has tabled a unanimous report which clearly states that these types of decisions ought to be made by a commissioner who is directly accountable to the ACT Minister for Police, to the government of the day, and therefore directly accountable to the people of Canberra. That is the problem here, Mr Speaker. Our current commissioner does not have to listen to us. When we get our own commissioner, and hopefully that will be very soon, who knows what changes he will want to make? Some of the changes that have just been made may very well be reversed and may represent time and money down the drain. Mr Speaker, it was logical to wait.

Some of the most recent changes have been a bit controversial and something of an experiment as - you guessed it - they are unique in not only Australia but the world. Our new police structure has never been tried anywhere else before. I do not know whether the changes will work - no-one knows that - but they have caused us to lose officers of the calibre of Commander Ric Ninness and Commander Lloyd Worthy, two well-respected and hardworking police officers. I have to say that I agree with Commander Worthy's comments recently that it is a dangerous precedent to have a police force without specialists. Coming from a police background, I know that specialists are needed. General duties police are busy enough without being expected to take matters from start to finish. However, I agree that greater interaction amongst the specialist forces and the general duties police is a good thing. What I do know is that once again the people of Canberra are an experiment. We have absolutely no say in what is happening to us, and neither does our Minister.

Mr Speaker, the reformation of our police structure has been total and has carried on unabated. Time and time again both Mr Connolly and I have asked Mr Humphries and the police to wait until a new commissioner is appointed. That this appointment has taken place without consultation and accountability to this Assembly, and sometimes even without prior communication, clearly proves to me that the position of ACT Minister for Police is no more than a mere popgun position, a token gesture. Who is making all the decisions here? Who is the real Minister for the police in the ACT? His name, Mr Speaker, is Mick Palmer. Unfortunately for the rest of us, all that we are left to deal with is Sir Humphries playing a role in an episode of "Yes, Commissioner".

I am not bagging you, Gary, but the fact is that it does not really matter whether you agree with or support any of the restructuring or anything that the commissioner does. If he wants it to go ahead, it will; but, if he does not want it to go ahead, it will not. If he chooses to ask you your opinion, he will. However, if he does not want your opinion, he will not ask. If he chooses to tell you and us his decisions before they are announced, he will; but, if he chooses not to tell, he will not. That is why the current

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