Page 4094 - Week 13 - Thursday, 10 November 1994
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MR HUMPHRIES (4.55), by leave: Madam Speaker, I would like briefly to contribute some words of support for this program. There is a very strong case for rethinking the way in which some of our policing operations are conducted. There was a time when, to all intents and purposes, Canberra was a country town. I am sure that at that time it was very easy for police to know what was going on, to keep a tab on it and to be able to deal with problems in a preventive, pre-emptive fashion. As we are frequently told, Canberra no longer is a small country town but is a large rural city, and we need to rethink the way that we do things. Perhaps the loss of personal contact which has accompanied that process needs to be redressed by the measure likeliest to ensure that people do know who their local copper is and that the coppers know who their local people are. Obviously, you cannot do that over an area as large as Belconnen or Tuggeranong, or whatever.
"Country town police" is a slightly strange expression. I know that one of the TV stations, which runs a program called Blue Heelers, said, when this idea was put forward, that the ACT Government was picking up an idea that was inherent in a show like Blue Heelers. Perhaps we could call these country town cops the blue heelers of Canberra. Whatever the phrase, I think the program is a good one. It deserves support. I was in Ainslie a few weeks ago and I saw Constable Ward scooting around the suburb on his little motor scooter or motorbike, and he appeared to be doing the job very well.
The only small concern I have, Madam Speaker - and it is not a criticism by any stretch of the imagination - is how country town policing will affect the operational integrity of the rest of the AFP. Clearly, with 70-odd suburbs in Canberra, if country town policing became the norm and became a feature of all urban areas of the ACT, there would be a major challenge to the resources of the ACT. I would not imagine that it would be possible to have someone doing a country town kind of beat around Wanniassa, say, during the morning, and then going off in the afternoon to be part of the dog squad or investigating major crime or whatever it might be. There would have to be some kind of allocation that was more or less quarantined from the other operations of the AFP. I hope that, at the end of the day, the measure does not cost other operations of the police.
I look forward to the Minister being able to expand on the progress with the trial, and indicating how the trial will be evaluated. In due course, if it is successful, as I sincerely hope that it is, he can come back and explain how we can deal with this. We can extend the idea and make it add to, rather than detract from, the work of the Australian Federal Police.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General and Minister for Health) (4.58), in reply: I thank members for their support. The Australian Federal Police in Canberra are establishing a reputation for extremely innovative approaches to urban crime prevention. The country town policing initiative; the diversionary conferencing scheme, which many members are familiar with; what we are doing with victims' rights - the package that came in this morning; and the matter that we just debated - the safer Civic project as part of the Community Safety Committee exercise; are all part of an innovative approach to law and justice, which has been a hallmark of this Labor Government. Unfortunately, politicians on both sides of the fence in Australia, and even more sickeningly in the United States -
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