Page 3774 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 29 October 2014
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Like any employer, the AFP has legislated obligations to provide police with the best possible training, skills and tools with which to do their jobs effectively and safely.
It is a legislated requirement. Mr Corbell has argued in here that the issuing of tasers reduces assaults. So I do not think it is a difficult concept to understand that the failure to issue these tasers down to the front line is actually having an effect on police safety. Indeed, we heard Dennis Gellatly from the AFPA say that very clearly today.
There is more from Mr Corbell. He is a goldmine, is he not? He said:
I would also make the observation that abuse of use of force is abuse of use of force. It is not related to a particular technological device. It can occur with a baton. It can occur with OC spray. It can occur with other forms of use of force. It is not driven by a particular device; it is not technologically determined. It is driven by the culture, the training and the capacity of police in how they deal with incidents involving violence.
It is a point well made. If there is going to be an abuse of force, that can occur, as Mr Corbell has told us, with a baton, with a spray or with a pistol. Why is it that tasers are treated differently? Is it because of a concern with the culture? Does he have a concern with that? Does he have a concern with the training or the capacity of police in how they deal with incidents involving violence? What is Mr Corbell’s concern? He has said it is not technologically driven. He said that it is a matter of culture, training and capacity. Where is the consistency in his argument? And where is the consistency in the Greens’ position?
Given what appeared to be the somewhat strong support by Mr Corbell in the arguments made by Mr Corbell in dismissing concerns of abuse of force, it seems passing strange to me that now that Mr Rattenbury is in the cabinet Simon Corbell’s position on the use of tasers seems to be much more closely aligned with the position of the Greens. We know that the Greens have a longstanding resistance to the use of tasers. Indeed, most of the quotes that I am using today were arguments put forward by Mr Corbell against the Greens.
In the last Assembly Mr Corbell argued for tasers. He said that they were a good tool, that they were effective, that they were appropriate, that they would keep our police safe, that any abuse with tasers was just as prone as abuse with batons or firearms. This was in answers to questions from Ms Le Couteur, answers to questions from Ms Bresnan, debates on motions brought forward by Mr Rattenbury. But now all of a sudden he has gone cold on it, has he not? All of a sudden it is different evidence and he is coming forward and saying that the evidence has changed. It seems passing strange to me that this minister’s position has changed with the presence of the Greens minister in the cabinet.
Unless Mr Corbell has had some separate revelation it would appear to me that this, again, is a change in the government’s tack based on a Green influence. In this case, most disturbingly, it is something that, based on Mr Corbell’s own evidence presented in this Assembly, is going to have an adverse effect on the safety of our police. There
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