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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 2 Hansard (28 February) . . Page.. 395 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

against increases in police budgets, and they have done so consistently since we have been in office. They ought to look at themselves because the public know them for what they are.

Mr Speaker, the promise has always been to get more police back out onto the streets and part of it was quite clearly that we would release police from non-operational activity and get them out onto the streets where they belong. We did not want our highly trained, well motivated police officers to be doing desk jobs that could reasonably be done by trained non-sworn officers. We have done that. We have freed up those numbers and those police are now out there doing the job that they have been trained for.

What those opposite would have stopped is the money that would have made that possible. They are the ones who have consistently voted against increases in the education budget, increases in health, and better spending on the police force. Yet they have no idea how they will fund the promises that they make. They made promises in January that do not exist in February. There is a little roller coaster of believability on the other side of the chamber. In January they promised extra money into police and education but they have forgotten it by the end of February.

It is disgraceful that they would attempt to portray the government as not having fulfilled its promises when they voted against the thing that would have made these police numbers possible. The extra money is there and it is being spent on the beat police.

What did Labor call our police force-the Keystone Cops; Constable Plods? This is the man who voted against an increase in the police budget that was to make beat policing possible; the man who does not understand that two plus four equals six; the man who has a leader who does not understand that what you say in January normally applies in February and that when you make promises in January you cannot unmake them in February; and the man who is a member of a party that has no credibility whatsoever on police issues.

Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation-relocation

MS TUCKER: My question, which is directed to the Minister for Business, Tourism and the Arts, Mr Smyth, is a follow-up to the question I asked yesterday about the movement of the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporations to the new business park at Canberra Airport. Minister, you stated that the CTEC board made this decision and that you believe that they have gone through a proper process, even though a member of the board is also the managing director of the airport. It has been drawn to my attention today that the chairman of the CTEC board, Mr James Service, also has a connection to Canberra Airport in that his father, Jim Service, is a director of the Capital Airport Group. I also understand that Impulse Airlines, which was to be the first tenant of the airport business park, is having second thoughts and has slowed down its move to Canberra, so perhaps there is some urgency for the airport in getting other tenants into the park.

Given the close relationships between the two organisations and that the move of CTEC to the airport seems inconsistent with access requirements basic to their work and, of course, in the interests of ensuring that there is no perception of bias, will you undertake

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