Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 3 Hansard (27 May) . . Page.. 671 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

As I said, I think it is time that we got tougher. The people of the ACT pay a hell of a lot of money for their police. For that money we get a commissioner who is not legally accountable to our Minister or to this Assembly. In fact, we only nominally get a commissioner. We get a chief of police. This is a ludicrous and unacceptable situation. In 1995 this Assembly had no direct say when there was a change of chief of police and the new commissioner at the time 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, the Federal Minister, and the 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 all members will agree is neither good management nor good government. I understand that there are lines of communication between the AFP here in the Territory and the office of the Minister for Justice. However, the reality is that there is nothing legally binding them. Quite frankly, the people of the ACT deserve better than this relationship which relies totally upon goodwill.

I note that this kind of motion has been supported by a majority of members in this place before. On the last occasion it was discussed, Mr Moore said that he was critical of the original police agreement and that he had been critical of it ever since.

Mr Berry: He is more critical of the person who made it.

MR OSBORNE: I probably agree with you there, Mr Berry. Mr Moore said at the time that he considered the police arrangement with the Commonwealth so inadequate that we ought to see what we can do to withdraw from it. I believe that while speaking on one of the earlier motions I related the story about some crosses put up outside the Indonesian Embassy by some East Timorese people. The local police Minister at the time was Mr Connolly and his order to the police was to leave them there; but then word came from their boss, who was the Federal police Minister. He ordered them to take the crosses down. I think that clearly highlights the problem that we face here in the Territory.

When I raised this matter before, I thought that we may have been going a bit far; but now I am convinced that the Commonwealth will not take us seriously until we start demanding a proper service for our money. I am sure that the Government will see the sense in this. It makes much of its purchaser-provider model and I am sure it would believe in every other case that purchasers should be able to have some say in the provision of a service or to take their money elsewhere if that service proves inadequate. That is something that I do not particularly want to raise today, but it is something that I think we need to keep in the back of our minds.

The Government, like a lot of Liberal governments, talks the talk of business, but it does not always walk the walk. It seems to walk in a particularly funny way when it comes to staring down the Commonwealth. How can this can-do Government claim that it is good business practice to purchase a service that it has no control over? If you were a small

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .