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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 3 Hansard (27 May) . . Page.. 675 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Every year a large number of matters referred to the Commonwealth and ACT Ombudsman relate to complaints about the work of the Australian Federal Police. I think the police provide a very high quality of service. Nonetheless, there are a significant number of complaints each year. The process of assessing how valid those complaints might be is a process which is well and truly kept at arm's length from the ACT - in fact, even beyond arm's length, probably at some greater distance than that. Until very recently the ACT's exposure to the processes of that investigation of complaints against Federal Police was very limited indeed. In fact, we were as interested as anybody else in the community in seeing the Ombudsman's published report each year on results of investigations - and we are paying for this to take place, which I think is a somewhat unsatisfactory state of affairs. Those who think that separation is a good idea underestimate the need for the community to be in control of the resource that it pays for.

Mr Osborne has made reference to the issues which are to be covered in the review of policing in the ACT. The Commonwealth and the ACT have agreed that the issues concerning the appropriateness of a level and the means of payment for the current services are issues which need to be addressed by way of a review and that this review should take place in the context of the renegotiation of the policing agreement to reflect a clear line of accountability in the relationship between the AFP in the ACT Region and the ACT Government. The Commonwealth Minister for Justice, Senator Vanstone, and I have agreed to undertake a comprehensive review of ACT policing services on the basis of renegotiating that policing agreement. The policing agreement is open ended. It does not come to an end at a particular point in time, unless such an end is triggered; so putting this review into that framework of renegotiating that agreement is a process which is fair and reasonable.

A joint steering committee was established in January this year to oversight the review. The terms of reference of the review have improved reporting and financial accounting requirements as a prime objective, with a focus on the current nature and the cost of AFP policing services and the method of apportionment between ACT and Commonwealth responsibilities. The steering committee is chaired by the chief executive of my department and also comprises the AFP Commissioner, the chief executive of the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department and the ACT Under Treasurer. I might also advise the Assembly that Mr Rein Mere from KPMG has been appointed to assist the review as a consultant, in particular to look at that exercise of costing the various ACT versus Commonwealth components of the AFP's operations in Canberra.

Having said all that and having agreed that we need control, I must say that what this motion does is to set a very high bar for the ACT to clear. What the motion says is that we should not - indeed, almost that we shall not - sign a policing agreement with the Commonwealth unless it contains a commitment to the appointment of a police commissioner for the ACT of the kind that we have been discussing in this place today.

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