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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 3062 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

What do we see in the police budget? The much-vaunted 7 point something police for this year. But where did they go? Not where this government promised to send them-out where the police said they would be of most use-but into the DNA unit. Suddenly, this government has discovered the importance of the DNA unit. But it is not prepared to put its money where its mouth is; it is not prepared to well and truly support the DNA unit.

This Chief Minister, who was dragged kicking and screaming to the table to agree to the DNA unit and who was constantly claiming it was a violation of the human rights of every man Freddy around the place, has suddenly discovered and allowed his government to have a Damascus-like-yes, we are all talking about Damascus-conversion on the DNA unit.

But there are not the resources to fully implement it. We have seven police, whom we said we would put on the beat. We have not put them on the beat; we put four of those into the DNA unit because otherwise there would be no resources at all for the DNA unit.

It is an abrogation of this government's election policy to put seven new police each year on the beat. They have not done it. At the same time, we find that they have a passing commitment to the DNA unit. But the DNA unit could be equally well served by non-sworn officers-officers who have technical expertise-rather than uniformed police, who should be on the beat. This is an abrogation of the commitments this government made to the ACT people.

Moving on to the Emergency Services Bureau, we find some good things. We find that there is money in this budget to enhance response times. How do we enhance response times? We enhance the response times by working on the firm foundation set down over seven years by the Liberal government under Mr Humphries and Mrs Carnell.

It was under Mr Humphries' tutelage when he was minister for emergency services that we had the Emergency Services Bureau. Before that these organisations were spread hither and yon all over the place, and for the first time they were brought together. The thing that makes emergency services really work in this town is that they work together as one well-oiled organisation and talk to one another and get things going.

It has worked to some extent to break down many of the service differences we have seen in the past. But more could have been achieved in this area if the government had not gone to water at the first little problem, had not buckled under the limited lobbying that we saw in Woden and had not abandoned the concept of a JESC in Woden.

This government maintains that the JESC notion is a good one and is prepared to commit to forward planning for a JESC in Belconnen. At the same time it buckled under a small amount of lobbying at the eleventh hour by a small group of people and decided not to go ahead with the JESC in Woden-at great cost to the people of Woden.

What the previous government had promised was a brand new police station, ambulance station and fire station, co-located in a position where response times could be made better. But what happened? A couple of people started to whinge, and the government thought that it would be better to buy a handful of votes in Woden by abandoning good

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