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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2339 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

The crimes statistics that have just come out point to the need for extra police, and I am on record saying that I welcome an extra 50 policemen on the streets. But I want some truths known. The first truth is that this government has presided over a downsurge in the number of police per 100,000 people over the last five years. Mr Humphries himself said the most important statistic was the rate per 100,000 people. Let me quote a figure from the Productivity Commission's Report on Government Services 2000, page 596.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. Do you wish to take your other 10 minutes, Mr Hargreaves?

MR HARGREAVES: Yes, please, Mr Speaker. On page 596, it says that in 1993-94, when the Labor Party was in government in the ACT, there were 223 police staff per 100,000 people in the town. In 1998-99, only last year, when this Attorney-General was the steward of this town's safety, there were 215 police per 100,000 people. That is a drop, by the minister's own criteria. The number per 100,000 has dropped. We are also seeing a corresponding increase in property theft-burglaries-and motor vehicle theft.

It is true that everybody has been giggling about it in NSW and that all the crooks have been coming to Canberra from Sydney and Melbourne. It is also true to say that if we had the proper number of police per 100,000 people we might have been able to prevent that. What we are seeing now is the impact of this government's sleepiness. It is sitting on its hands and not addressing the issue. A great poker machine win from the Grants Commission has enabled all this to happen. I remind members that there was nothing in the draft estimates about 50 extra police. Bingo, up comes the poker machine win and we can now put the extra 50 police on, which is great.

I would also like to debunk another figure that Mr Humphries talked about. He talked about 90 extra police. The extra 40 were traded off in the enterprise bargaining agreement, which means the current police have to work even harder, and that can compromise their safety.

According to the ABS crime statistics released yesterday, total property thefts-in other words, burglaries-have risen from 1,904 per 100,000 persons in 1993 to 2,349 per 100,000 now. The national average is 2,191. We are higher than the national average. With motor vehicle thefts, the storey is the same-560 per 100,000 in 1993, 1,094 per 100,000 in 1999, when the national average was 684. Do not tell me that the Labor Party presided over a downsizing of the police force. The facts speak for themselves. This government has sat on its hands and has not kept the police numbers up to pace with the growth in population, and we are now paying the price for that.

In this budget there is no mention of the fire brigade. Over the last five years the government have not done anything for the fire brigade at all, except congratulate them when they have done really well at things like the Thredbo disaster. They have presided over a downsurge in morale. We all remember the blew over the missing fire fighters budget. I am still not convinced that that money does not exist within the budget and that it has not been knocked off by management for application somewhere else.

I would like to congratulate the government at least once this evening. I applaud the initiative of the AFP strike teams. I think that is a great initiative, and I wish them well. I hope that the two strike teams build on the success of the first one, Operation Dilute.

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