Page 1689 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 April 2009
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I have requested a briefing from the police minister’s office in relation to organised crime activities specific to the ACT. His office is arranging the briefing, and I thank the minister for his assistance and cooperation in this matter. Notwithstanding, I have been provided with advice, and it is also well evidenced either through media reports or through various provided criminal statistics, which leaves me in no doubt that we do have an organised crime problem here in the ACT, which includes an outlaw motorcycle gang.
Just recently we have had high profile fatal incidents in New South Wales which are gang related. I note that incidents of this type do not appear to be typical in Canberra, however, they do serve to remind us that, with organised crime, there is always the threat of violence as a final means of recourse. We have seen violent activity in Canberra that, although not described technically as gang activity, nonetheless has involved Rebels’ members and included the murder of Rebels’ members.
Mr Corbell, the police minister and the Attorney-General, should know that my call to provide adequate power to the police is not a knee-jerk reaction in the face of media attention. He should well remember his own Chief Minister tell the Assembly in August 2004 about criminal elements, such as outlaw motorcycle gangs, that deal in illicit substances. The Chief Minister said in relation to such organised crime:
… we’re talking here about extremely bad, evil people; people who do not hesitate to murder; people who do not hesitate to maim or shoot off legs; people who try assiduously to corrupt every official that they can identify as corruptible for part and purpose of their illicit drug trading. We’re talking about extremely ugly people. And that’s what this legislation is designed to attack—our capacity to deal with some of the ugliest people which we as communities nurture.
So that is a quote from the Chief Minister with relation to organised criminal elements conducting corrupt dealings, similar to the outlaw motorcycle gangs. Before that, in 2003, when Ms Tucker at the time took issue with Mr Stanhope’s trust in our courts and ACT Policing and their ability to administer new powers with integrity—something that I fear Mr Corbell is taking some issue with now in his resistance to enact some tougher laws—Mr Stanhope said:
We just should not be proceeding from the automatic assumption that you cannot trust the courts, because you can, despite the fact that sometimes some of us might have thoughts about particular issues and particular instances.
I do not think in developing legislation on a difficult subject such as this you can proceed, as I think Ms Tucker does, from the assumption you cannot trust coppers and you cannot trust courts. At some stage you have got to just let yourself go and trust a little bit.
Mr Corbell also needs to acknowledge that our call to bring the ACT into line with other jurisdictions in tackling organised crime is not specific to the Canberra Liberals. In fact, his own government has made the same argument as I am making in this place. In 2003, former police minister, Bill Wood, argued:
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