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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 3 Hansard (27 May) . . Page.. 673 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

It is something that emanates from the mind of the Police Commissioner, who is a Federal public servant and who, I am sure, does not even live here. He lives in Sydney, if I am not wrong. We have a police force provided to us by a Federal public servant who is responsible to a Federal Minister.

The real issue is accountability. I do not believe that we have an acceptable level of accountability. The policing arrangements contract, from what I understand, not having read it in fine detail, is pretty poor as a commercial business contract in the first instance. We cannot tell how many police we have on a particular exercise on a particular day. We do not know at a particular time what the mix of support people to operational police is. We do not necessarily have a say in the application of resources in particular parts of the community - for example, violent crime, traffic or whatever. We can get consulted, but basically it comes from on high. We need to have that accountability provided to us. We need to have the opportunity to say what it is we need and to have it built into the contract. I have confidence that the negotiations which will be going on between the office of the Minister for Justice and the Federal bureaucrats in the AFP will result in that. I hope so.

The ultimate expression of that accountability is to have a chief officer of that particular service. We have a chief officer in our ambulance service, and we have a chief officer in our fire service; but we do not have a chief officer in our police service who is accountable to this Assembly. That is the prime focus of that accountability. We need to have a person here whom we can hold accountable for the distribution and the deployment of resources and the quality of service that we provide. Quite frankly, if we complain to the Attorney-General or the commissioner, we can be told to nick off and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. I do not find that acceptable. The Emergency Management Bill which will be put to this Assembly later on, and no doubt debated intensely, talks about an emergency management committee, and in that committee is a chief police officer. The definition describes him as being responsible - - -

Debate interrupted.

MR SPEAKER: Order! It being 5.00 pm, I propose the question:

That the Assembly do now adjourn.

Mr Humphries: I require the question to be put forthwith without debate.

Question resolved in the negative.

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