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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2656 ..

At a national level, that means we need strong security systems and a strong defence force. At a local level it means we need a strong police force that is properly equipped and able to get out there and do its job to protect the citizens of the ACT. We do not do the right thing by our police force if we do not adequately resource them and do not ensure that the numbers are there. It worries me that, whereas in the past we seemed to be somewhere in the middle of the pack where numbers were concerned, we are now down at the bottom. We have the association saying, “We desperately need at least another 100 or 120 really”—it might be 123—“to take us up to the national average.” What do we see? I think the government has committed to about another 20 police officers in this budget. That is simply not good enough when, for example, the Gungahlin Police Station has a reduced capacity, which means it cannot open all the time.

The previous government opened that police station and it operated around the clock. That simply does not happen now and the Belconnen police have to service that area. In fact, that has not happened since June 2003 when the northern district was restructured and we saw 19 operational police move into other areas. Gungahlin has certainly missed out. It has lost a lot of policing capacity and local residents are very frustrated by this, as witnessed by a couple of incidents reported in the paper recently.

I think it is crucially important that this government, and indeed any government, seriously address the issue of police numbers, because you are not going to stop crime. You are certainly not going to deter people who have an inkling to commit crime if you do not have a police force that is able to respond and if you do not have at the back of the criminal’s mind, or the wrongdoer’s mind, the very real likelihood that they might get caught.

We rarely see police out there in Canberra these days. We certainly see them to a much lesser extent than we did in the past. It is crucially important that police are not only able to do simple things like answer the phones in the stations to be able to respond to crime but also to be seen out there. In my own area of Belconnen, in Kippax for example, one particular store in Hardwick Crescent has been broken into 10 times in the space of 14 or 15 months. Seven of those were late Saturday night break-ins, or in the early hours of Sunday morning.

On about five occasions the tavern next door had its windows kicked in. They pinpointed a fairly narrow space of time when that occurred. If you had greater numbers with greater patrols, you could even perhaps stake out the place and catch some of the criminals in the act. The police came on each occasion, but they were being reactive rather than proactive. If you have the numbers you are able to be proactive.

I know the Queanbeyan police are fairly proactive—I think that is a particularly well-policed town. Unfortunately, I think we compare rather sadly when one looks at Queanbeyan. If you have the numbers and you are proactive you are able to do things like the bike patrols, which have worked wonders not only in deterring crime but also in stopping crime; you are able to ensure that you have adequate cars out there to undertake some beat patrols and provide backup if police get into a difficult situation; and you are able to respond to such things as armed robberies. There are far too many of those and more police would greatly assist in that area.

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