Page 4095 - Week 13 - Thursday, 10 November 1994
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many of us have seen these snippets of ads in the recent congressional campaigns - seem to be determined to outdo one another on being tough on crime. Whether you are Labor, Liberal, Democrat or Republican, you try to say, "We are tougher on crime than anybody else is".
Mr Humphries: Are there any Democrats left?
MR CONNOLLY: There are a few Democrats left, Mr Humphries. I note that Anne Richards in Texas, in her advertising, was saying, "Anne Richards increased the prison budget by 40 per cent in the last term of office and increased the education budget by only 3 per cent". Apparently, that was seen as a proud boast to attract Democrat voters to vote for the Democrat.
Mr De Domenico: She lost, did she not?
MR CONNOLLY: She did, presumably because the Republican was promising even more on crime, to get even tougher on crime, and education would have even less of a perspective. We have seen politicians chasing their tails and getting tougher on crime, in the United States particularly, and the place is far less safe than it was 20 or so years ago. The approach of this Government, rather than getting tough on crime, is to get smart on crime. We look at innovative solutions; this is one of them.
Last night I had the privilege of attending a function here in Canberra as part of a national conference on anti-terrorism. Attending that, and sitting at the table between Peter Dawson and me, was a very senior officer of the London Metropolitan Police. He is now in charge of their protection unit. He had previously been the chief police officer of Westminster. He was very interested in what we are doing in Canberra. It is interesting that this paper was essentially Peter Dawson's work. This is a concept that Peter Dawson has been driving very hard. We are very fortunate to have in this Territory a Chief Police Officer who is a man of vision and who actually sees a real role for community policing; rather than rhetoric, as there is in some parts of Australia where community policing seems to involve television ads and stickers and that sort of thing, without any real change of attitude. It is fascinating that Peter Dawson, in the preface to this paper, quoted Sir Robert Peel on the origins of policing. We had a member of the London Metropolitan Police, Sir Robert Peel's successor, in Canberra, looking with great interest at what is being done here. I think we can say that in this regard the Australian Federal Police are working on ideas that are at the absolute forefront of innovative community policing. I thank members for their support. Obviously, this is an idea that we want to keep going for a long period of time. As we were discussing at the Estimates Committee, clearly, there would be a resource problem to put it across Canberra tomorrow. As Mr Dawson explained, to keep one officer in a rapid response mobile patrol type of environment requires eight officers, by the time you operate your shifts and all the rest of it. If we can get a crime prevention strategy in place and get a community policing strategy in place, for every one officer that you can take off general duties you can get eight community police officers; you can get eight country town police officers. There is scope for redeploying resources within the AFP and having a greater reliance on this country town policing model.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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