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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 1983 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

I would also congratulate the external bodies that made the effort to make submissions. Some of them probably had already made submissions to the government and through the draft budget process. I congratulate my fellow members of the committee for the prevailing spirit, as well as the other MLAs who came into the place. In particular, I would like to congratulate the secretaries, who did a tremendous job under a lot of pressure in preparing this report; in particular, Bill Symington, who is departing this place this week and who had the overarching responsibility.

MR RUGENDYKE (12.05): I have dissented from the report of the Estimates Committee on two recommendations and added some comments. The first dissent is to recommendation 1, regarding the draft budget process. I believe that this process can be refined to enhance future budgets. The committee's report fails to mention the strong support voiced by community representatives, especially ACTCOSS, for having the opportunity of input at the front end of the budget process.

A case in point for saying that it was a good process was my beat police proposal, which was presented to the Justice and Community Safety Committee, endorsed in draft budget recommendations and subsequently incorporated in the final budget. This has demonstrated how positive ideas from outside government could be implemented through this process. If there were a genuine spirit of cooperation from members in the draft budget process, it could be a meaningful addition to the local form of government. It would be negative to abandon the idea after one attempt, without giving the process a reasonable opportunity to work.

My second dissent relates to recommendation 37, regarding the beat police proposal. The original recommendation about its it proceeding was watered down. I fully endorse the beat police proposal and urge the government to adopt it in the spirit of the original submission that was put in by me, with police being strategically placed in the suburbs. The Justice and Community Safety Committee assessed the proposal and recommended that the government allocate additional funds in the 2000-01 budget and future budgets for the establishment of a beat police program. The government has acted on this recommendation and should now be allowed to proceed with its implementation.

An assessment was completed of the country town policing trial back in the mid-1990s. The Chief Police Officer, Mr Bill Stoll, informed the committee in public hearings that the evaluation by Frank Small and Associates provided feedback from the community that was very positive. In short, the community's satisfaction levels with and perceptions of the police service were higher in the areas subject to the trial, visibility of police activities was higher in the trial areas, and the fear of crime while walking or jogging at night, which incidentally is an international fear of crime indicator, was lower in the experimental suburbs.

Another major plus of the trial was that the crime intelligence gathered by country town constables was hugely beneficial to task force operations and other crime investigations. The beat police program would be able to play a similar role in helping to combat the explosion of home burglaries and theft in the ACT. The major problem with AFP operations is the lack of police on the ground, on the beat, and the aim of the proposal is to increase police visibility and accessibility in our neighbourhoods. The Estimates

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