Mr BAILEY - 1997-02-27
On Tuesday, the Chief Minister spent many hours in this House telling Territorians that all was well with the police force and that the police had sufficient resources to do their job. Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table an extract from an internal police memorandum dated 26 February 1997.
Leave granted.
Mr BAILEY: This extract states that, due to staff shortages, an entire section of the police in Darwin will not be operating during the next roster period. In the face of the increasing evidence of staff problems in the police service, will the Chief Minister now admit that staff shortages are disrupting the operations of the police, and that many more police are needed?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I welcome the question from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Quite clearly, there will be shortages of staff from time to time, depending on what people are doing, whether they are away on recreation leave ...
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr STONE: If you are quiet and do not interrupt, you will get your answer.
For the member to come in here and simply make this blanket allegation of staff shortages, without explaining to people who might be listening to the broadcast that people are absent on recreational leave, people go away for training programs ...
Mr Stirling: Have they only just started doing that?
Mr STONE: If the member for Nhulunbuy will be quiet, he will be able to listen to the answer.
Mr Stirling: Make it up!
Mr STONE: Let us take an example - and I am not making it up - of where some of these shortages arise and how they arise. If a police officer is required to attend court as a witness, whether that officer is there for 1 minute or 4 hours, he or she has an entitlement to 4 hours overtime. When you produce this document ...
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr STONE: Let us be clear about this. The opposition is not claiming that these are the actual Casuarina or Darwin local police office rosters, is it?
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Mr Bailey: No.
Mr STONE: It is not claiming that these are police documents. These are documents that members of the opposition have reconstructed. These are not police documents. That is the case, is it not?
Mr Bailey: We said they were typed documents.
Mr STONE: Right. We have verified that because we have shown these to the police and they say that the documents are not police documents. I am pleased that we have clarified that because that is not the way you put it when you came in here. Quite clearly, you are at it again. These are documents that you have constructed and have brought in here. They are not actually police documents. It is a pretty important point. The Leader of the Opposition rose to her feet with great fanfare, but the document turns out to be something that she has put together. It is not an original document. It is not something that has come from either Casuarina or Darwin police office.
I go back to the reasons why there are shortages of staff from time to time. Let us take the example of the police ...
Members interjecting.
Mr STONE: It is clear that members opposite are not interested in the answer. It is a cheap hit for the opposition. They stand up in here and say they want more police, that they want a policeman on every street corner, but they have no intention of ever delivering on that. I do not believe for one moment that they would spend one single extra dollar on police. We already had the remarkable concession, I think from the member for Stuart, that to implement a number of the opposition's education policies, services would have to be cut.
Members opposite have a track record of not standing up and supporting the tough sentencing options. They are the ones who very glibly say we should have more police, but that we should be soft on offenders. They simply want more police to chase the same offenders, and put the same people back into the courts and back into jail. Why won't they line up with the CLP government and support tough sentencing?
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Wanguri.
Mr STONE: Why does the member for Wanguri empathise with the criminals rather than the victims, to the point where he is forever championing the people who commit these crimes rather than the victims?
The reality is that there will always be staff shortages of that kind. Even if I put on an extra 200 police tomorrow, there would still be staff shortages in certain areas. As I pointed out in the course of the debate earlier this week, a number of Cabinet submissions are circulating at present in the budgetary cycle. That is the proper way to deal with these matters. They were prepared and circulating long before the opposition decided that this was a quick
Page 1986
and easy political kick. Those submissions are aimed at improving police resources in respect of communications, working environment, deployment for the benefit of Territorians, etc.
Members of the opposition believe that they are being helpful by coming in here and presenting their own documents and very selectively editing documents. If they think that that is being helpful, they are wrong. They had their big chance earlier this week to make a contribution to the debate, and they failed miserably. They were caught out again because, for some reason, they did not think a ministerial statement on police would be made. I found that surprising because they fiddled around the edges of it last week.
Let me tell the Leader of the Opposition and members of the Labor Party in the Territory that, if they are serious about law and order, they should get behind the CLP government and its strong sentencing options. The ALP should support mandatory sentencing and give the commitment that, in the unhappy event that they win the next election, they will not repeal the mandatory sentencing legislation. Will the Leader of the Opposition give her commitment not to dismantle the tough sentencing options that the CLP government has put in place?
Page 1987
Leave granted.
Mr BAILEY: This extract states that, due to staff shortages, an entire section of the police in Darwin will not be operating during the next roster period. In the face of the increasing evidence of staff problems in the police service, will the Chief Minister now admit that staff shortages are disrupting the operations of the police, and that many more police are needed?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I welcome the question from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Quite clearly, there will be shortages of staff from time to time, depending on what people are doing, whether they are away on recreation leave ...
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr STONE: If you are quiet and do not interrupt, you will get your answer.
For the member to come in here and simply make this blanket allegation of staff shortages, without explaining to people who might be listening to the broadcast that people are absent on recreational leave, people go away for training programs ...
Mr Stirling: Have they only just started doing that?
Mr STONE: If the member for Nhulunbuy will be quiet, he will be able to listen to the answer.
Mr Stirling: Make it up!
Mr STONE: Let us take an example - and I am not making it up - of where some of these shortages arise and how they arise. If a police officer is required to attend court as a witness, whether that officer is there for 1 minute or 4 hours, he or she has an entitlement to 4 hours overtime. When you produce this document ...
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr STONE: Let us be clear about this. The opposition is not claiming that these are the actual Casuarina or Darwin local police office rosters, is it?
Page 1985
Mr Bailey: No.
Mr STONE: It is not claiming that these are police documents. These are documents that members of the opposition have reconstructed. These are not police documents. That is the case, is it not?
Mr Bailey: We said they were typed documents.
Mr STONE: Right. We have verified that because we have shown these to the police and they say that the documents are not police documents. I am pleased that we have clarified that because that is not the way you put it when you came in here. Quite clearly, you are at it again. These are documents that you have constructed and have brought in here. They are not actually police documents. It is a pretty important point. The Leader of the Opposition rose to her feet with great fanfare, but the document turns out to be something that she has put together. It is not an original document. It is not something that has come from either Casuarina or Darwin police office.
I go back to the reasons why there are shortages of staff from time to time. Let us take the example of the police ...
Members interjecting.
Mr STONE: It is clear that members opposite are not interested in the answer. It is a cheap hit for the opposition. They stand up in here and say they want more police, that they want a policeman on every street corner, but they have no intention of ever delivering on that. I do not believe for one moment that they would spend one single extra dollar on police. We already had the remarkable concession, I think from the member for Stuart, that to implement a number of the opposition's education policies, services would have to be cut.
Members opposite have a track record of not standing up and supporting the tough sentencing options. They are the ones who very glibly say we should have more police, but that we should be soft on offenders. They simply want more police to chase the same offenders, and put the same people back into the courts and back into jail. Why won't they line up with the CLP government and support tough sentencing?
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Wanguri.
Mr STONE: Why does the member for Wanguri empathise with the criminals rather than the victims, to the point where he is forever championing the people who commit these crimes rather than the victims?
The reality is that there will always be staff shortages of that kind. Even if I put on an extra 200 police tomorrow, there would still be staff shortages in certain areas. As I pointed out in the course of the debate earlier this week, a number of Cabinet submissions are circulating at present in the budgetary cycle. That is the proper way to deal with these matters. They were prepared and circulating long before the opposition decided that this was a quick
Page 1986
and easy political kick. Those submissions are aimed at improving police resources in respect of communications, working environment, deployment for the benefit of Territorians, etc.
Members of the opposition believe that they are being helpful by coming in here and presenting their own documents and very selectively editing documents. If they think that that is being helpful, they are wrong. They had their big chance earlier this week to make a contribution to the debate, and they failed miserably. They were caught out again because, for some reason, they did not think a ministerial statement on police would be made. I found that surprising because they fiddled around the edges of it last week.
Let me tell the Leader of the Opposition and members of the Labor Party in the Territory that, if they are serious about law and order, they should get behind the CLP government and its strong sentencing options. The ALP should support mandatory sentencing and give the commitment that, in the unhappy event that they win the next election, they will not repeal the mandatory sentencing legislation. Will the Leader of the Opposition give her commitment not to dismantle the tough sentencing options that the CLP government has put in place?
Page 1987
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016