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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4257 ..

Mr Humphries: No. I am very well aware it happens.

MR STANHOPE: You do not think that a young 18-year-old kid at a service station robbed by some drug addict with a blood-filled syringe is as worthy of compensation as the policeman going about his duty. You do not think they are as worthy. That is just outrageous. Once you accept this amendment that is where we are. Second-class citizens. The kids do not matter. The mums and dads do not matter. What matters is that you need to concede to this amendment in order to get your Bill through, and by conceding to this you destroy the whole thing.

MR HARGREAVES (1.54 am): Mr Speaker, I think it is about time Mr Rugendyke stopped being a policeman and started becoming a politician. He should realise that he has to look after the people of his constituency in Kaleen, the area he became famous for. People in Kaleen have supermarkets. There are people working in those supermarkets. They are the people who get held up, just as the police have injuries doing their job.

I spoke earlier on about some numbers. Well, I am going to quote them to you again. In that annual report that you have on your table, 30 per cent of the cases referred to, give or take a bit, related to people who were injured through criminal activity while they were doing their job. About half of them were policemen, Mr Speaker, but none of them were firemen and none of them were ambulance officers. None of them.

Now, let us talk about indecent or sexual assault. I added indecent assault to the sexual assault things when I did my rough numbering. That was 6.4 per cent. We are up to 36.4 per cent. Let us add domestic violence and what I put down as neighbourhood disputes. It is sometimes very difficult to tell whether it is a domestic violence case or whether it is just neighbours fighting. That was 10 per cent. By my adding, 46.4 per cent of the cases in that book fill your Bill. What about the other 54 per cent? What about the robberies and the home invasions? They are not there. What about the people who innocently go to a nightclub and because some character is intoxicated they get done over?

Mr Humphries: Yes, they deserve money too, do they?

MR HARGREAVES: They deserve it every bit as much as a police officer does, Mr Humphries. Every bit. You either leave them in or you leave them out.

Mr Humphries: Rubbish. What, the world is black and white, is it?

MR HARGREAVES: It is certainly not black and white for the plod party over here.

Mr Humphries: The what?

MR HARGREAVES: The plod party. I say it again. These people have to understand that they are here to represent the wider community. They have a tunnel vision approach and are looking after what they perceive to be a constituency in the police force. I do not believe the police force are like that. All the police people I know are far more

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