Page 5372 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 November 2011
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(1) In amendment (1), omit proposed subparagraph (2)(f), substitute:
“(f) there were 48 assaults recorded against ACT police in the reporting period, compared to the average of 57, and that 17 of those assaults involved spitting;”.
(2) Omit amendment (2).
I will speak briefly to the two suggestions I have made regarding Mr Hanson’s amendments. Similar to the attorney, I think it is quite appropriate to reflect the assaults against police. I think that our police officers do an incredibly difficult job and they certainly should not be forced to face threats to their personal safety. In some ways we ask them to do that as part of their job, but I think they should not have to and that reflecting the number of assaults is important.
That said, one of my amendments seeks to actually put it in context. In recent annual reports hearings the Chief Police Officer noted the annual average of 57, which again is a figure that I think is unacceptably high. But it is important to note in Mr Hanson’s proposed amendments that we put this in the full context.
It reminds me of a discussion we had in this Assembly probably a good 18 months or so ago now when Mr Doszpot brought in a motion in which he talked about the fact that 52 per cent of crime is happening in the Woden and Tuggeranong police districts. The insinuation was that that was a small part of Canberra facing a disproportionate amount of crime. When we actually looked at the overall context, the Woden and Tuggeranong police districts covered everything south of the lake. So roughly half of Canberra was facing about half of the crime in Canberra. When we are looking at these statistics, it is important to reflect the context in which perhaps a narrow statistic is more broadly encompassed. I simply seek to expand on the point that Mr Hanson makes there.
My second amendment is to omit the point about increasing penalties. Again, as the attorney has noted, this is the subject of a proposal to be brought forward by the Canberra Liberals. I do not think it fits into today’s motion. Certainly, that proposal has been put forward as an exposure draft. The way this will be used down the line if we pass this is to say, “Now you have to support our bill,” and I am not prepared to do this today.
We do not know exactly what the nature of that bill is going to be, given that it has gone out as an exposure draft. I am reluctant to pass part of a motion today that will then be later used to sort of say, “Hang on, you have locked yourselves into this.” There are reservations I have about the way that Mr Hanson’s or the Liberal Party’s exposure draft is framed and I certainly look forward to having some detailed discussions about the actual provisions of the final bill.
I assume we will see a final bill and I presume it will be brought on for debate, unlike, for example, the infrastructure for Canberra bill which, despite the great discussion it gets, has never actually been brought on for debate. I wonder why that is the case, because if there is so much conviction behind it, presumably you would actually bring it to the Assembly to have a discussion about.
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