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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (2 July) . . Page.. 2215 ..

MR HARGREAVES: I will speak with more flamboyance. The people who can read Hansard will be able to follow this. I am a bit concerned, Mr Speaker. I reckon we need about an extra 66 police, but I am open to persuasion on that from the Government. I wonder sometimes about the speed cameras. Perhaps we will get an Urban Services officer to do that. We will get rid of the slant radar and we will save the traffic police allocated to those duties and put them on other duties.

Mr Humphries: Like what?

MR HARGREAVES: Like home invasions, Mr Humphries. Have you ever had your home invaded? Have you?

Mr Humphries: I have had a few parties that were a bit out of control, but - - -

MR HARGREAVES: Yes. Well, invaded by idiots, perhaps, Mr Humphries, and that would not surprise me at all. Being invaded by drunks would not surprise me either. Being invaded by people with nowhere else to go would not surprise me either. But I ask you, Mr Humphries, as you sit there with your smug look on your face - - -

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hird): Order! Mr Hargreaves, you know the procedure. You address the Chair. Thank you, sir.

MR HARGREAVES: Through you, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I ask the Minister for Justice and Community Safety whether he has ever had his home burgled or broken into. The answer is probably not. I take it that that is so because of the embarrassed look on the Minister's face. Well, Minister, I have, and in very recent times. Quite frankly, Minister, through you, Mr Chair, I would rather have those policemen trying to address that than having them sitting on the side of the road pinging people for doing five Ks over the speed limit. When I got home only last week to find my door busted in, splintered, and that people had wandered through my house only - - -

Mr Humphries: Ah, this explains a lot.

MR HARGREAVES: It certainly does, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker. It does explain a lot. If the Minister cares to go back through Hansard he will see similar comments from me in the past about being worried about what other people might feel when this happens. Well, it is not an academic exercise any more, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker. It is real. I think our police are doing a magnificent job. The police attended very quickly and did a great job. Constable Mullins was the guy in charge if you want to ring him up and say well done. I am happy to say that for the record. He had an offsider whose name I have forgotten, and I deeply regret that. It is my fear that later on we might take more police out of the system. It is a worry.

I must say, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that hitherto a lot of things that pertain to the police were academic as far as I was concerned. They are not any more, not only to me but also to people who are dear to me and people who have spoken to me who have had similar experiences. Such experiences are not nice. If the Minister comes in here and glibly says X, Y and Z and talks to me about an academic thing, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I will merely smile, look him in the eye and look for the nearest spittoon.

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