Page 1269 - Week 04 - Thursday, 8 May 2014
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Whilst I understand Mr Rattenbury’s desire to revisit previous discussions on police pursuits, his commentary does not take into account the many recent reviews of ACT Policing’s pursuit policy and work that ACT Policing continues to undertake to further strengthen its robust pursuit guidelines. The framework we already have in the ACT for disputes is demonstrably robust. The government does not support this proposal today. (Time expired.)
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.42): We will not be supporting the referral to committee. Some of the points that have been made by the government I think have been well made. I will not attempt to be repetitious, but it is an issue of balance. It is a balance between what the police have got to do to keep the community safe and making sure that in the course of their duties when they engage in pursuits they do so in a manner that reduces the amount of risk for the community. I am confident that the framework that the police have at the moment is the right balance.
I do not say this simply as a matter of guesswork. As the minister has outlined, there have been internal reviews, there have been external reviews, there have been judicial reviews—and, indeed, I have spoken to police. I had conversations about this issue with the previous chief police officer. I have a meeting with the new chief police officer later this month and that will be a topic of discussion. I have had conversations with the Australian Federal Police Association. I believe that Shane Rattenbury has not done some of those things. I do not think he understands some of the implications of pursuing what he is trying to do.
Let us be very clear, Madam Speaker, that this is not some objective look at police pursuits. This is not something that Shane Rattenbury would have us believe—that is, just having a look at something to try and gather the evidence so we can come to a view. Mr Rattenbury has an agenda. His agenda is to do away with the ability of the police to engage in pursuits. I know this because I can go to his community discussion paper of 2011 on police car chases. That is what he called for. Basically, he said that he wants to prevent police from engaging in police pursuits for a range of different things. If it was a serious offence like murder, rape or armed robbery then police would be allowed to engage in pursuits, but not for traffic infringements—and he labelled them “simple” traffic infringements, trying to downgrade them.
Essentially, what he is saying is that if you get in a stolen car and are speeding, on drugs or drunk, you can do so with impunity. What he is saying is that the police would be hamstrung, that they would be incapable of pursuing people for those sorts of offences. We know that that happens in our community. The reason it does not happen more often than it does now is that the police are out there on our streets keeping us safe and acting as a significant deterrent to people that would otherwise be able to do that with impunity.
Under the Shane Rattenbury model what we would see, basically, is a green light given to young men, in most cases, to steal cars, drive at any speed they like and drive drunk, because all they would have to do is evade the police. What sport it would be under the bold world that Shane Rattenbury sees where a group of young men can get
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