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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 11 Hansard (22 October) . . Page.. 3951 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

Mr Deputy Speaker, I would not like to hear anybody in this place say that the community does not know what it is saying. I have a strong sense that the community is right and that we need to take action to carry on with that.

Ms Dundas said that I was ignorant in respect of point 6. I don't know what the hell she was driving at. If anybody is ignorant of what the meaning of that part of the motion actually is, then I am afraid that Ms Dundas has perhaps demonstrated that.

Ms Dundas has also misled on the issue of time in remand. We have not, in our proposal today, talked about increasing times in remand for prisoners. In fact we want the opposite. We want to hasten the system so that people do not clog up courts and do not remain on remand, tying up valuable police time and valuable court time. So that was a misleading statement, Mr Deputy Speaker.

In fact I would have to say that, if people in this place are going to debate this serious issue, then they need to put aside their emotional soft-on-crime attitudes, seriously examine the facts and listen to what the community majority are saying.

When Mr Quinlan and Mr Wood talk about numbers, yes, they are right; the numbers of ACT police per capita are near the Australian average. But what they don't tell you, and of course Mr Quinlan wouldn't dare tell you, is that some of those are unsworn police and some of those are civilian public servants. Smoke and mirrors! Mr Quinlan, big chief smoke and mirrors!

Mr Hargreaves accused me of denigrating the police. Well, that's a gross misrepresentation as well. We have in fact supported the police. When we talk about declining performance we are talking about the declining performance-

Mr Quinlan: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Mr Pratt has so far said, "Mr Quinlan put a lie down here."I chose to ignore it. He has on a number of occasions accused other members of misrepresenting. I think you have been here long enough to learn to debate, say what you want to say, without using that-

MR PRATT: That's not a point of order.

Mr Quinlan: Excuse me. I ask for a withdrawal of "Mr Quinlan put a lie down."

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Pratt, the word "misleading"and the word "lie"are out of order. Please withdraw.

MR PRATT: Mr Deputy Speaker, I withdraw.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

MR PRATT: Mr Quinlan has predictably launched an array of personal attacks today to obfuscate the issue. There is no use attacking these statistics as they have been laid out because these statistics stand for what they are. But of course Mr Quinlan is bereft of any ideas to add to this debate today. Nor does he have the arguments to defend the

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