Page 3744 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 29 October 2014
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use-of-force measures are limited; their tools are limited. It means that there is a far greater chance that their use of force will be a lethal use of force in those circumstances.
What I am saying here today is: let’s get the Assembly and the politicians out of this debate. Let’s say to the Chief Police Officer: it is your discretion. It is not for Simon Corbell to say no, to hold up the red card as he is doing now. Let us say, as the police minister and as this Assembly: we respect our police; we respect you as a decision-maker, Chief Police Officer; it is your decision; it is your decision if you want to roll tasers out further.
The Chief Police Officer is the person who knows what is required the most. It is not Simon Corbell sitting there in his comfortable air-conditioned office. It is the Chief Police Officer and his officers. If our Chief Police Officer wants to roll it out to acting sergeants, good; that is up to him. If he wants to roll it out to senior constables, that should be something that he has the green light to do. If he wants to roll it out to every front-line trained sworn officer in this territory, we should be saying in this place that he has a green light to do it. It should not be Simon Corbell sitting up there in his air-conditioned office saying, “No, you have got to come to me; you have got to argue this through me.” Quite clearly, this should be an operational decision for the Chief Police Officer. Simon Corbell should be giving the green light instead of being in the way of our police officers trying to do their job on our streets.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Capital Metro) (12.03): Mr Hanson suggests that we should keep the politics out of this debate. What extraordinary hypocrisy from Mr Hanson—the man moving the motion, who has made this a political issue. It is just extraordinary. I will come to some more of Mr Hanson’s hypocrisy later in the debate when I refer him to the comments he made in debates in this place about tasers a number of years ago.
Firstly, let me address the issue of the use of tasers, or conducted electrical weapons, as their technical title is. Mr Hanson has moved this motion calling for me to agree, on behalf of the government, as Minister for Police and Emergency Services, that the Chief Police Officer trains, and issues tasers to, all front-line sworn officers in the ACT at his discretion. The government supports the use of tasers by front-line police sergeants in appropriate circumstances, and believes that an amendment should be made to the motion to reflect the government’s, and indeed the police’s, view that the current position in relation to tasers is both appropriate and prudent. I have circulated that amendment and I will move that at the conclusion of my comments.
There is no proposal before the government at this time from the Chief Police Officer to change the existing arrangements in relation to the operational deployment of tasers. There is no proposal. Mr Hanson can be critical of the current arrangements but the current arrangements reflect the position of the Chief Police Officer of the Australian Capital Territory and his advice to me. So, if Mr Hanson wants to criticise me, he needs to criticise the Chief Police Officer, because the position in the territory at the moment is the position as proposed by the Chief Police Officer. And there has been no recommendation to me from the Chief Police Officer to change the current arrangements.
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