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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2338 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

shops and all three of them were full? You could go to the local school. Most schools have premises. I have no problem with that if that is what the government wants to do.

We should consider what sort of accommodation might be a good idea. It might be a good idea to rent a two or three-bedroom house in the area for $160 to $180 a week. That is not a lot of money. You would then have a community policeman in a community setting. When we wanted to establish strong ongoing links, we would not have a big police flag sticking out the front or the spectre of the police being heavies. We would have our own village policemen in the community, for $180 a week. That is not a lot of money.

For the six constables, if that is the rank they will hold, I would like to see another $200,000 to $300,000 to provide them with transport-a leased motorcycle and/or a motor car, depending on the circumstances in the suburb-and to rent premises of the sort I have just described to enable the program to have some success. That is not a lot of money-a couple of hundred thousand dollars. If the beat policeman is able to come up with free accommodation, fine. The money can then be applied to programs that that constable runs within his beat. If he can save, say, $3,000 to $4,000 from renting premises, he can apply it to workshops and whatever else he needs to bring the community along with him. I am concerned about that.

I am also concerned about the way in which GST is being treated. In BP 2, $65.3 million is said to be apportioned to the AFP. In BP 4, it says $71.3 million. I understand that roughly $6.5 million is for GST. When we tried to find out whether or not GST was payable on police services, no-one could tell us. It just pops up in Budget Paper No 4. Members who were on the Estimates Committee may remember me asking questions in that forum about GST. I was told in an answer which I hope other members have received a copy of that the GST is not now payable. Yet I have received advice from treasury that, as far as they are concerned, we still do have to pay it.

I do not know what is going on. I do know, though, that Budget Paper No 4 contains the individual numbers, the aggregate of which becomes the Appropriation Act. There is $6.5 million sitting there. If they have to pay it, all well and good. The money disappears over to the Central Financing Unit, is paid to treasury, comes back again by way of an input credit, and everything is squared off. But the minister's advice to me is that we do not have to pay the GST. Another $6.5 million is being appropriated to the Attorney-General, and he has no more idea what he is going to do with it than he did with the $1.3 million worth of crime prevention program.

When I was asking questions about the beat police program, it became pretty obvious that the minister had made a bit of a gaff about sponsorship for accommodation. I understand that his officers advised the media that if they have to pay for accommodation for the crime prevention program they will take it out of the crime prevention program. That is policy on the run. If I can get a guarantee that $200,000 or $300,000 is going to come out of $1.3 million worth of pocket money the minister has given himself to apply to the beat police program, I will be a happy little vegemite, and I am sure Mr Rugendyke will be too. But no such guarantee has been forthcoming in this chamber.

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