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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3314 ..

Police Services

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Police. Mr Humphries, in early September, after you acknowledged a shortfall in policing services provided by the AFP under contract to the Territory, you announced that you would examine the possibility of seeking compensation from the Commonwealth to cover that shortfall. Can you now say whether you have initiated any audit to establish the extent of the shortfall? Have you yet asked the Commonwealth whether it will reimburse the Territory for the resources it did not provide?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, first of all, on the question of an audit, Mr Wood would be aware that the Australian Federal Police is a Commonwealth agency and it is not possible for me to conduct an audit of a Commonwealth agency. That is one of the many weaknesses we are discovering in the arrangement with the Australian Federal Police. Indeed, there was an attempt earlier this year to conduct an audit of the gun buyback scheme which has been taking place since May of last year. That audit hit a snag, at least in the early stages, because it was not possible for our Auditor-General to do an audit of the AFP's operations. We have since come to an arrangement whereby that can happen; but that one had to be negotiated and it took some months, as I understand it, to do.

On the question of reimbursement, I have raised this matter and discussed it extensively with the AFP. I have left it with the AFP to identify how they intend to compensate the ACT for the shortfall to the ACT. If the AFP can do that internally, that is their business. They are the ones who are providing the service. They are the ones who appear to have short-changed the ACT rather than, as far as I can determine, the Federal Government per se. It seems to me, Mr Speaker, that it is appropriate for the AFP to make up any shortfall. If they are unable to do so, of course, I will raise the matter with the Federal Government.

MR WOOD: I have a supplementary question. Mr Humphries, what is the form of information you would expect from the AFP? Are you going to be satisfied with the accuracy of what they give you, since you do not at this stage have the ability to monitor that accuracy?

MR HUMPHRIES: I do not know what form of information I will get. That is a weakness in the arrangement to which you and I and everyone else in this place are already privy. We know the weaknesses of the arrangement. I cannot make the information available to me any better. I might say that I do not think up until now there has been a deliberate attempt to mislead the ACT. There has been a lack of information provided in the past, and when we pressed them to clarify or refine the information these sorts of discrepancies came to light. It is certainly not the case, as far as I can tell, that anyone set out to deliberately deceive us. I do not have any basis for believing that the information that is to be provided to us is being manufactured in such a way that it might cause us to suffer some loss. Obviously, one of the issues we will have to address in the future with our arrangement with the AFP is how we get and use accurate information about a range of issues.

Mrs Carnell: I ask that all further questions be placed on the notice paper.

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