Page 3588 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 2005
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both traffic operations and the districts have undertaken high visibility patrols of the ACT, incorporating all areas of traffic enforcement utilising speed measuring devices such as laser and radar. This has been undertaken in conjunction with a community awareness campaign throughout the local media.
The men and women in our police force are sick and tired of Mr Pratt criticising them and denigrating the work they are doing to keep our community safe. He might try to couch it in terms of criticising the government but in the end what he is really saying is that the police are failing in their efforts to protect Canberrans. What an insult. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we have the best police force in this country. They are professional, dedicated and successful. We have seen significant reductions in crime. We are one of the safest cities in Australia and people feel safe in their homes—something not acknowledged publicly by Mr Pratt.
Since being elected in 2001, the Stanhope government has recognised the importance of our police force and has increased funding to ACT Policing from $68.2 million in the last Liberal government budget in 2001-02 to $94.4 million in 2005-06—an increase of over $26 million. We have committed funding for an extra 60 full-time equivalent officers to the force. Since 2001, crime rates in the ACT have decreased significantly. Overall offences against the person have reduced by 11.5 per cent. Overall offences against property have decreased by 27.8 per cent and total offences have decreased by 20.9 per cent. I do not see any acknowledgment of those sorts of achievements in the public arena from the opposition. Following specific targeted campaigns led by ACT Policing over this period, the territory has experienced a 36 per cent decrease in burglary offences since 2000-01 and a 32 per cent reduction in motor vehicle theft.
Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, again Mr Pratt brings up police numbers. He will not be happy until there is yet again a police officer stationed at the bottom of his driveway, and even then he will say it is not enough because some other jurisdiction wholly unrelated to the ACT has more. On many occasions in this place and in the media we have been through the issue of the national average and why it is not directly relevant to the ACT. Variations in policies, socioeconomic factors and geographic/demographic characteristics have an impact on expenditure for police services in each jurisdiction. The scope of activities undertaken by police services also varies across jurisdictions.
An analysis of police annual reports in the various jurisdictions illustrates differences in services provided between other jurisdictions and the ACT. Other police services have functions the ACT simply does not need to fulfil through our police force. For example, most jurisdictions employ police prosecutors. In the ACT, all prosecutions are handled by the DPP. Other examples include stock squads, marine/water police, railway squads and Aboriginal police liaison officers. Based on a headcount, not FTE, Western Australia has 125 sworn Aboriginal police liaison officers.
According to the Productivity Commission, community safety and support accounted for the largest component—46.3 per cent—of expenditure on police services across jurisdictions in 2003-04. Looking across the jurisdictions, the proportion of expenditure on community safety and support was the highest in the ACT at 65.8 per cent and the lowest in Queensland at 33.8 per cent. Let me repeat that: the proportion of policing expenditure spent on community safety and support was the highest in the ACT. Madam
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