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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2385 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

attempted breakout within 12 months. I predicted that last time, and it happened. That is not because this government is slack, it is not because the bureaucracy is slack, and it is not because the BRC people are slack; it is just that the conditions at the Belconnen Remand Centre are so draconian and out of date-we will have to put up with it, unfortunately, until we build the state-of-the-art prison-and that these people are so desperate, that they will try to escape. Even if it is a temporary measure, we need to increase the salary resources to prevent that happening.

Mr Moore: How much should I put in?

MR HARGREAVES: Mr Moore knows what I am talking about, knows that I am not grandstanding on this issue and knows that I am concerned for the prisoners as much as I am for the people who work there, but I am very worried that if we do not have the correct staff to prisoner ratio there the prisoners will be desperate enough to have another go.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. Do you wish to take the second 10 minutes available to you?

MR HARGREAVES: Yes, Mr Speaker. I have laboured hard over this issue for a long time. I will let that matter rest there. Suffice it to say that I predict that, if we do not have the correct number of resources there, another disaster will befall us.

I want to make mention of policing resources. Mr Rugendyke is very handy at accusing me of being disloyal to our police, something I reject out of hand. I temper my support for the police with a compassion for not wanting to put them in a position that I do not think they ought to be in. I do not believe in doing that.

Mr Rugendyke: Ha, ha!

MR HARGREAVES: Mr Rugendyke can laugh as much as he likes, but a man with such tunnel vision, a man who is besotted with a uniform, would be the sort of man who would have every cab and bus driver in this town in a blue suit and a white hat. He has to wake up to himself and start putting some reality into it. I remind Mr Rugendyke that I have been the one who has been screaming at this government to lift the number of police in this town since we have been here together. I have been the one who has said that we need to raise the number of police per 100,000 people. I said three years ago that this government has not provided police in numbers comparable with the numbers in 1993-94.

Mr Moore: You said that the police numbers should be raised to-

MR HARGREAVES: To the number of police per 100,000 that existed in 1993-94. Let me say that I welcomed the provision of an extra 10 police by this government. I think that was terrific. I am going to be critical of how they are deployed, but I welcomed that. But on my figuring they are 100 down, excluding the 10; to be exact, they are 91 down.

I have been critical of the deployment of police on a number of fronts because of my desire, firstly, to have more of them. I believe that we need to have more police around the place. People's perception of safety and their reality of safety are one and the same

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