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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 3865 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

Last year this Assembly had no direct say when there was a change of commissioner, and the new commissioner totally restructured our police force. I am not saying that that was good or bad; I am just saying that we had no say. Daryl Williams and our current commissioner, Mick Palmer, are not legally required to consult with our Minister on any police issue or even to tell us what policy decisions they have made, which, I am sure members will agree, is neither good management nor good government. Quite frankly, the people of the ACT deserve better than this relationship which relies totally upon goodwill.

Mr Speaker, I will not say much more than that. My opinion has been aired publicly on a number of occasions. I am sure that most members will agree that the response from Mr Williams was unacceptable. We elected members of this Territory are accountable to our constituents for matters involving the police. We pay so much money, yet we have no say. That is why I have taken this step of asking that the Chief Minister, Mrs Carnell, write to Mr Williams asking him to come down here and explain his action. I hope and expect that all members will support this motion.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (12.15): Mr Speaker, I have considerable sympathy with the motion that Mr Osborne has moved. I must confess that it is not easy to have to rise to express sympathy for a motion which is fairly damning of the Federal Attorney-General, because he is a member of my own party. It is difficult for the ACT to have to be at loggerheads with the Commonwealth government on any issue, irrespective of the party to which that government belongs. Clearly, the ACT has a very powerful vested interest in close cooperation with the Federal government, and it needs to concentrate very heavily on working through difficult issues, attempting to resolve them by consensus and negotiation ahead of withdrawing to the battlelines and talking up active hostilities.

However, I think I agree with Mr Osborne that in this particular matter the point has been reached where the position of the Commonwealth appears to be very difficult for the ACT to live with. The practical difficulties imposed on the ACT are severe. The compromise necessary to accommodate the Commonwealth's requirements - to quote the Federal Attorney, to accommodate the clear command structure of the AFP as they perceive it - indicates great difficulty for the ACT. It makes it very hard for us to operate the policing function in the ACT as appropriately as I believe it should be operated.

Mr Speaker, I understand the difficulty that having an ACT commissioner or ACT chief of police would create in the minds of some at the Commonwealth level in terms of creating potential dual sources of authority for officers serving in the AFP. You could imagine the situation, theoretically at least, where a police officer receives directions from the Federal Commissioner of the AFP and the ACT Commissioner of the AFP which are contradictory and has some doubt as to which he should obey. That is a theoretical problem. I believe that in practice there would not be a problem, because the ACT in practice exercises considerable autonomy over the policy guidelines under which the Australian Federal Police operate.

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