Page 5130 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
and seemingly logical argument. However, as I noted earlier, the statistics from Western Australia shed significant doubt on the claim, and the Greens would want serious Assembly consideration of an expansion in the use of tasers before such a step was taken.
At this point I would like to make it very clear that the Greens support the AFP officers who make up the ACT Policing arm of the Australian Federal Police. For the record, and before there is any suggestion to the contrary, we support them and the important work they do in protecting our safety. We acknowledge the challenging role they have and the dangers they often face.
Furthermore, the motion today does not reflect a lack of trust in those officers or a lack of concern for their welfare. To the absolute contrary, we believe our officers deserve to be equipped with the very best state-of-the-art de-escalation techniques and non-weapons-based training to enable them to do their job to the best of their ability and in as much safety as is possible.
But in that context I want to remind the Assembly that more police are injured in Western Australia now that all general duties police officers have tasers. So to fully support and value our police force, the Greens say: arm them with skill and training, not necessarily more and more instruments of force.
I want to spend a bit of time discussing why the Greens are concerned about the use of tasers. It comes down to the sense that there is a very real risk that confrontations will be escalated and that this will force the hand of police to use the taser. From reading the Western Australian report, that appears to be a theme that comes through in the evidence there.
It was interesting that when this was being discussed a couple of weeks ago, one former police officer who called in to Triple 6 talkback radio in the morning made the following observation. He simply said, “If a police officer has more weapons, they are more likely to resort to them,” in his opinion. He said, “We should be placing greater emphasis on the old skills of talking somebody down, seeking to de-escalate the situation through human contact and the like.”
I thought that was a really interesting observation from somebody who spoke from a clear point of experience. In the document I have just tabled, there is a case study on the deployment of a taser in a case where a person was resisting arrest. The Western Australian Corruption and Crime Commission investigated the incident. I am now going to quote a passage from the findings in their report:
A police officer was on his own, on duty and in full uniform. He was in the lift of a city building. As he reached the lobby, he heard an indigenous man shouting loudly and swearing …
… He believed the man was suffering from a mental health problem as a result of methamphetamine abuse or alcohol abuse …
The police officer followed the man into the street. The man went into a cafe and spoke offensively to the person behind the counter.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video