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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (17 February) . . Page.. 241 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

before the committee as well if it is having the first significant inquiry into the operation of community policing in the ACT. That is a concern I have. This could be very broad-ranging.

I also put on record another concern of sorts. There are a number of other matters currently before the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety which are also important in their own way but which will now need to be relegated to a lower order of priority as a result of this inquiry. For example, it is quite some time since issues relating to the so-called drunk's defence and also matters to do with freedom of information legislation were referred to the standing committee. I hope those matters are not considered unimportant by the committee. I am sure they are not. I am sure that this inquiry will be given a high priority by the committee. But I note that there is already a very large amount of work on the committee's plate. I hope that too many important things do not suffer as a result of this inquiry.

As I have indicated, the Government does not oppose this inquiry. It hopes that it will be productive. It has to put on the record that it suspects that it will tell us what we already know, fundamentally, about our arrangement with the AFP and that is that in its present form it is unsatisfactory, that there are matters which are unsatisfactorily performed within the present arrangements and that we need to overcome those things. Perhaps that will be useful in later iterations of the policing agreement, the purchase agreement, which the arrangement between the Commonwealth and the ACT that I am going to put to the committee will foreshadow should take place beneath it.

There will be an arrangement between the governments and there will be yearly policing agreements, purchase agreements, which will define what the community wants year by year from the AFP by way of delivery of services. That will be an agreement based on performance indicators so as to achieve outcomes that the ACT community expects from its police force. That will be important to have in place on an ongoing basis. It will be important to have it available for the purposes of defining what sorts of problems occur in areas that are referred to in this motion.

Mr Speaker, I indicate therefore the Government's reservations about this matter but look forward to the work of the committee and the report in due course.

Motion (by Mr Moore ) agreed to, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:

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