Page 2916 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 2013
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do with separation in the jail. This is something that has been an ongoing problem. It is something that could have been anticipated better by the government.
When you put maximum security through to minimum security people, remandees and sentenced all in the same spot, there are going to be significant issues. Just in 2012-13 there have been five reported assaults between sentenced and remand detainees. There have been three reported assaults of detainees in different classifications. In January this year there was a failure to separate prisoners that resulted in an at-risk prisoner being left with catastrophic injuries after being punched by another detainee.
I remember that the Canberra Times a while back described the jail as a shambolic fiasco. Whilst we are still spending tens of millions of dollars, as it will be, to compensate for this government’s extremely poor planning back in 2007, the benefits of the jail, if there are any, are being significantly outweighed by the massive expense that this community is having to foot the bill for.
Moving to police, the committee has recommended:
… that the ACT Government provide the Assembly with full details of the impact of $15 million cut to ACT Policing.
I note that the government has responded by saying that this will all be background stuff and it will not have any impact or effect on operations. But I note that $6.2 million is equivalent to 45 police officers. In the Canberra Times on 7 June the AFPA chief executive, Dennis Gellatly, who was until recently a sergeant, I believe, in ACT Policing, and who would know this stuff, said:
It appears that the ACT government intends to wind back the clock on policing numbers in three to four years. It could result in the lowest police numbers per capita in Australia.
The AFPA have raised some significant concerns about what this means in terms of operational capacity. They also said that the government had failed to consult with senior members of ACT Policing, including the Chief Police Officer, and union leaders before the budget decision.
I am concerned about these budget cuts. It is a lot of money. As we know, whenever anyone says, “We’re just taking this from the back end; it’s going to have no impact on operational capacity,” we know that that sort of squeeze on an organisation is very difficult to maintain without an impact on the sworn officers. We will certainly be monitoring that one over the coming years.
There are some additional amounts in the budget, which I commend. There is some more money for the RAPID. I think that is a great capability and I commend the government for having brought that in. It is making a difference. I think the additional money there is worthy, and the opposition supports that. That includes recruitment of a sergeant, seven constables and four dedicated traffic police. There is also some more money for random roadside drug testing which, as would be appreciated, the
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