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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (26 November) . . Page.. 4734 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

The government is very happy for us to be consistent with New South Wales when it suits them, an example being Ms Gallagher's industrial relations legislation put down on the table and to be discussed tomorrow. Also, the Treasurer regularly states that he wants us to be in line with New South Wales when it comes to taxes and other monetary issues, which will clearly bring in extra revenue to the territory. Yet when it goes against this government's soft-on-crime views, there is no way in the world they would adopt sensible laws that apply in New South Wales.

Earlier, the Chief Minister raised relevance to cross-jurisdictional law. There is a lot of relevance if those laws impact on border/regional matters. The Chief Minister has raised some quite interesting criminology issues, which I agree bear further analysis. But the Chief Minister does not seem to understand what taking responsibility for action means and where it starts. It is not in his lexicon.

Social justice is pre-eminent in the Chief Minister's thinking, but what about community safety? What about the fact that some people need to be locked away from society? Some people, some of the time, need to be locked away from society for appropriate periods of time in the interests of the community and for the sake of community safety. Deterrence, complementing diversionary strategies, is also a legitimate strategy.

One of the new offences Mr Stefaniak has introduced in his bill is car-jacking, which will have a maximum penalty of 10 years, or 14 years for aggravating circumstances. This is the same provision as for the existing New South Wales offence. In many cases, the people who commit car-jacking are doing it in both jurisdictions. Included, in line with the New South Wales act, are some additional offences in relation to assaulting, stalking or harassing a police officer; obtaining personal information about a police officer; and stalking a person associated with a police officer.

As shadow police minister, I am very keen to see that our police force are protected. They have a very difficult job. The community asks our police to step up and step into the fray in too many cases. If we are going to ask our police to do that, we need to make sure that there are instruments in place that protect our police to the furthest possible extent. That is what this piece of legislation is all about.

The four offences I have listed above have in fact been requested by the AFPA. They are very important to police, and the government is disregarding the interests of the police. Does the government want the police to be punching-bags for any fool who wants to assault them in the street, without having adequate offences to counter this problem?

Mr Wood: Gross exaggeration!

MR PRATT: Police do get beaten up, Minister, in case you have not looked lately. The current offences in relation to assaulting police are far from adequate in the view of police. That is what police are saying, Minister. Do something about it; don't just bleat about it. We should not, in cavalier fashion, ignore the police when we develop policy. When we in this place develop policy, we need to take into account police advice. If the police are going to be protected, and encouraged to go out and do the tough jobs that the community asks them to do, we need to have those instruments in place to protect them.

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