Page 3739 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 29 October 2014

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The Assembly voted—

Ayes 9

Noes 8

Mr Barr

Ms Gallagher

Mr Coe

Ms Lawder

Ms Berry

Mr Gentleman

Mr Doszpot

Mr Smyth

Dr Bourke

Ms Porter

Mrs Dunne

Mr Wall

Ms Burch

Mr Rattenbury

Mr Hanson

Mr Corbell

Mrs Jones

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.

ACT Policing—tasers

MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (11.48): I move:

That this Assembly:

(1) notes that:

(a) tasers can be an effective non-lethal tool for trained police when confronted by violent individuals posing a risk to the community, to police or to themselves;

(b) a number of incidents have occurred in the ACT where firearms were discharged by police with tragic consequences when at the time tasers were not available as an option;

(c) ACT Policing has successfully issued tasers to trained substantive sergeants over the last three years;

(d) substantive sergeants are not always able to respond in time to incidents where frontline police are confronted by violent individuals;

(e) all frontline sworn police officers are issued with firearms; and

(f) frontline police and the Australian Federal Police Association have called for tasers to be issued to all trained sworn ACT police officers; and

(2) calls on the Minister for Police and Emergency Services to agree that the Chief Police Officer (CPO) train and issue tasers to all frontline sworn officers, at the CPO’s discretion.

It gives me great pleasure to rise to talk to this motion and to commend it. This is a motion that, if it is passed, will actually have an impact on our community, unlike the nonsense that we have heard for the last hour and a half, which was really a mixture of self-congratulation and politics from those opposite.


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