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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (8 August) . . Page.. 2611 ..

MR STANHOPE: Mr Moore has ignored the entirety of the 14 reports of the Auditor-General in relation to Bruce Stadium. It's breathtaking, isn't it? It is breathtaking that Mr Moore could find not one thing in the Auditor's reports that was worthy of his support or condemnation, not a single thing. It's amazing, isn't it? Absolutely amazing.

There is one other thing I will say in relation to the police. Today a member of the Labor team in the Assembly, a member of staff in Mr Wood's office no less, Rebecca Goddard, ceased her employment with the Labor Party to take up a career with the Australian Federal Police. That is a major contribution by the Labor Party to this dreadful level of crime and concern about community safety in the ACT. This is how seriously the Labor Party takes it; that we are prepared at this time in the electoral cycle to send our best and fairest to seek to undo some of the damage that this mob opposite has done.

I would like to conclude with one final remark just to put some perspective on some of the continuing issues in relation to community safety and police. I refer to the outcomes of that enormously expensive survey that the government commissioned. I forget what it is called. It cost $110,000. I remember that. In terms of levels of community concern about this government's commitment to service delivery, the greatest level of decline in satisfaction was this community's level of concern about police resourcing. The greatest negative result and return from the survey of the people of Canberra in relation to the delivery of government services was in relation to resources for police. And when was that survey undertaken? In was in July this year. That is the community's vote on how this government has performed in this area. This is the area that they regarded with least satisfaction, of all areas of government service delivery.

The nonsense that we have heard over the last hour or so from the other side has not fooled the people of Canberra. They know what is going on. They are awake to you. They know you have not done well. On your own survey, the one you tabled, the people of Canberra gave you a very big cross-not too well done. It was not a particularly good report card on policing from the Canberra community. The area on which you were marked as having produced your greatest failure was this area.

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Business, Tourism and the Arts and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (5.22): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the praise that those opposite offer to the police is quite amazing. As they give with one had, as they always do, they take back with the other. Mr Quinlan spent his speech praising the police on what a good job they had done, but finished with the final quip that it was statistically inevitable that the crime rate would come down. So apparently, whatever it is that the officers of the AFP have done, according to the Labor Party, it was just statistically inevitable.

Mr Quinlan: You have been sitting next to Gary for too long, Brendan.

MR SMYTH: They were your words. You said it was statistically inevitable. That goes exactly alongside the words from Mr Hargreaves when he said, "If these results are real, it's a great achievement." So yet again they doubt the figures supplied by the police. The ACT Labor Party doubt the local officers of the AFP. They doubt the police.

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