Page 743 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 1 April 2008
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MR CORBELL: Again, I thank Mr Gentleman for the question. Indeed, as I have highlighted, the key factor is the additional recruitment. The additional recruitment sees those 107 extra police on the beat. That, of course, is a direct result of the government’s facilitation of that through the budget process. As I have also mentioned, the other element is the very detailed work that was done by the new roster team, involving the Australian Federal Police Association and AFP management. That has been a very pleasing process. This new roster arrangement is very much best practice now for all policing services around the country. Many other policing services are now turning to and looking at this new roster arrangement because they can see the benefits that it delivers.
In particular, it is worth highlighting that it is those category 2 and category 3 incidents which will get the most benefit from these arrangements. The category 1 response has always been the most urgent type of response and has always been dealt with in a very timely manner, but category 2 and category 3 type incidents, where police need to respond within 20 minutes or within three hours, have been pushed on occasion because of lack of police numbers. That has now been addressed because of the additional policing resources and because of the new roster arrangements. Combined, they make a huge difference to police response times.
I look forward to providing the Assembly with detail on the police response against their performance targets in the policing agreement, so that members can see whether or not this is making a real and practical difference on the ground in terms of improving response times for all categories of incidents. So whether people have rung up and asked for the police to attend and it is the sort of matter where they need to be there within three hours or within one hour, this will enable the police to meet those time frames in a much more consistent and regular way, and that is good for the community. If the police show up when they say they are going to show up, that helps to improve confidence in community policing.
Mr Pratt: That’s stating the bleeding obvious.
MR CORBELL: Mr Pratt says it is stating the bleeding obvious; indeed. But where was their commitment to provide any additional new police to ACT Policing? When they were in government, what did they do? Did they provide an additional 107 police? Did they put an extra 16 patrol cars on the road? Did they provide an extra 44 officers at those peak times? Did they do those things? The answer is no, they did not. They were prepared to run the policing service down. They were prepared to talk up law and order but not to fund it in a real, meaningful and practical way, and that is something that this government has been pleased to do and will continue to do.
Environment—Department of Defence land
DR FOSKEY: My question is to the Chief Minister and refers to the management of the Lawson land, both the component presently occupied by the Department of Defence and that part of unleased land under the control of the ACT government. The Department of Defence divests itself of the Belconnen Naval Transmission Station site in Lawson in August 2009. Can the Chief Minister advise the Assembly what
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