National Police Remembrance Day

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (12:09): I move:

That this house—

(a) recognises that 29 September 2015 is National Police Remembrance Day;

(b) acknowledges the great work of the South Australia Police and the Australian Federal Police in protecting our communities; and

(c) remembers those officers who have lost their lives or have been seriously injured while on duty.

I am really pleased and proud to bring this motion to the house today. This year, 29 September marks the 26^th National Police Remembrance Day, and it will be celebrated all over the state with ceremonies to remember and honour those South Australian police officers who have died while on duty. South Australia Police, of course, have been serving our community for over 175 years, and over that time we have lost 61 of our officers while on duty.

I know from my brief time in the job—and, indeed, one only needs to spend a short time to appreciate this—how dangerous and unpredictable the working life of a police officer is. You drive in dangerous ways, you handle firearms and other dangerous equipment, and of course you are dealing with difficult and unpredictable people, probably more so than in any other profession. You never know, going from job to job, what is going to happen, what is going to confront you as you open a door or pull over a car, and situations obviously can go from benign to very dangerous very quickly.

It is dangerous and, sadly, sometimes lives are lost. Police officers understand this going in, and while, especially these days, every possibly precaution is taken to ensure that the proper tactical procedures are followed to minimise their risk, it is inherently a risky business. Our community is kept safer for the police's efforts and for the risks they take and, sometimes, for the sacrifices they make.

I will just go through some of the figures. The first South Australian police officers to die while on duty were Mounted Constable John Carter, aged 22, and also Lance Corporal William Wickham, aged 24, who both died by drowning on 7 May 1847. The most recent officer, of course, was Senior Constable Bob Sobczak, aged 52, who died, tragically, on 26 May 2002 in a motorcycle accident.

Sadly, police officers have also died in the line of duty from six drownings, two accidental shootings, four horse accidents, one stabbing, eight murders, one from thirst, two assaults, one case of sunstroke, two cases of pneumonia, one bicycle accident, and four in bushfires, including what must have been an incredibly sad situation at the time, when three officers were lost—Special Constables Mervyn Casey and Colin Kroemer and Sergeant Cecil William Sparkes—all on the same day, 19 January 1951. They were trapped and died together in a bushfire in the Adelaide Hills.

There have been 25 motor vehicle accidents, one gassing, one hit-and-run by a motor vehicle, and two other unspecified motor vehicle accidents. It is not surprising perhaps that the majority of loss of life has been from motor vehicle accidents, as a lot of a police officer's work involves, as I said, driving not dangerously but urgently in their pursuit of—

Mr Gardner: In risky situations.

Mr ODENWALDER: In risky situations, thank you. Perhaps the more tragic frequent cause of death of a South Australian police officer while on duty has been murder, which underlines of course the danger of dealing with people who are unpredictable, often drunk, occasionally drug-addled but most often drunk, and people who are for various other reasons unpredictable. In addition to those officers who have lost their life while on duty, of course countless police men and women have been injured while on duty, and I would also like to pay tribute to them. On average, a South Australian police officer has died while on duty every 2.9 years; obviously, this is too many.

National Police Remembrance Day is traditionally held on 29 September, that being the feast day of St Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of police. National Police Remembrance Day is a significant day of commemoration when people can reflect on each individual police force and remember those officers killed on duty. It provides an opportunity to honour all police who have given their life serving the Australian and south-west Pacific communities and also those police who have served in various theatres overseas, as the member for Waite alluded to in a previous motion.

The 61 SAPOL officers killed in the course of their service are deeply missed and very much appreciated by South Australians right across the community. Respect for our hardworking police is, of course, felt on all sides. It is not a political issue. It is a bipartisan respect we feel for these hardworking men and women. We remember today that 29 September is National Police Remembrance Day and we pay tribute to the 61 members of the South Australian police force who have paid the ultimate sacrifice while performing their duty.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light—Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (12:14): I rise today as the South Australian Minister for Police and the member for Light in support of the motion recognising the 26^th national remembrance day to be commemorated next Tuesday 29 September. I will keep my remarks brief as I am sure there are others in this place who will wish to contribute to the motion marking this important day. In my role as Minister for Police I have come to learn of the true dedication that every member of the South Australia Police places in their role in keeping our community safe. Sadly, this comes with inherent risks, which have led to the untimely death of 61 police officers in the line of duty.

Earlier today, I met with the president of the South Australia Police Legacy, Sergeant Mark Willing, and vice president, Sergeant Jodi-Lee Black, which supports the families of police officers who have lost their lives. I would like to voice my support for Police Legacy for the important work they do and encourage people to support them by donating and wearing the police remembrance ribbon. In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all our past and present members of the South Australia Police and remember those who have tragically given their lives to keep our community safe, and I also keep in mind their families.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (12:16): I appreciate there will be a number of members who wish to speak on this motion as is the case every year when we debate motions of this nature. It is appropriate that a motion such as this is considered every year because I think our police have a unique role in our community. It is the only job in public service where we ask as much of serving officers as we do.

As the shadow minister for police I have great pleasure in supporting the motion as, of course, do all members of the opposition. Along with everyone here, I have an enormous amount of respect for our state's police officers and the work they do. In our role as members of parliament, we are often the first to hear about particular issues relating to crime within our electorates. A strong relationship with local police is pivotal and necessary in carrying out our roles. We are lucky in South Australia to have a police force deeply connected to the community and always interested in looking at new ways to connect.

A police officer, when they wake up in the morning, is conscious that there is a risk to their life when they go to work, that is the nature of their work. While other jobs may be inherently risky, there is always an extra element of danger when dealing with people, especially dangerous people, when they encounter them in the community. Many of us in the house never thought of pursuing a career as dangerous as being a police officer. Each individual here has come from a different background, but when we came to parliament the risk to our lives in doing so was slim to none, but for police officers the chance of them putting their life on the line exists every time they put on their uniform and knock on a door when they do not know what is on the other side.

We acknowledge that the removal of all risk to a police officer's life is impossible, but reducing that risk is something that we work at whenever we can. This week we have passed legislation allowing police to scan people's fingerprints if there is reasonable presumption that they have committed a crime, which allows for the speedy identification of possible criminals. This is another example of giving police the tools they need to complete their job.

Part of our job as parliamentarians is, I think, to try to understand the risk police officers face while at their job. It is a difficult task, given that for the most part we cannot rely on firsthand experience, the member for Little Para excluded as someone who has served in this capacity. It is still a very real risk, as one recent event reminded us. The Tailem Bend shooting is a recent example of the dangerous work undertaken by police. After refusing to cooperate with police, a 50 year old man went back into his house and returned with a shotgun. Several shots were fired near officers by the man, before the man directly shot at a STAR Group officer, who returned fire at about midnight, apparently fatally wounding the man. The STAR Group officer attempted CPR on the man but unfortunately he died at the scene.

Police always try to resolve incidents in a way that protects all life, although sometimes the outcome is not what they hope for. I think any member reflecting on international news broadcasts in recent months and years from countries and jurisdictions in many ways similar to ours would be especially grateful for the extraordinary capacity and restraint that our police show in such situations and that I think citizens of other similar jurisdictions would be grateful for and glad of if they had the opportunity.

The South Australia Police have been around with us for 177 years, and in those years, 61 officers have died while on duty. That is the truth confronting every police officer who wakes up to go to work in the morning. We are lucky that it is now 13 years since we last had a fatality, with the officer Sobczak whom the member for Little Para referred to earlier. In previous years, I have listed all the names of those who have died while on duty. I do not propose to do so again this morning.

It is not just up to police to take responsibility for this. It is a shared responsibility for this parliament in enacting legislation, the government in allocating resources for appropriate training and equipment, and the commissioner and senior ranks of SA Police in ensuring a safe working environment exists as much as possible, and it is up to all members of our community. The community must take partial responsibility for keeping our officers safe. There is, of course, a small percentage of people in our community for whom this is not a focus, but the vast majority of South Australians value and respect their police officers and understand the key role that they play in keeping all members of our community safe.

I would like to thank the magnificent officers who do their work for us but, as the minister did, particularly identify members of their families and their friends and community, who give them the support they need to do their job. We here in the parliament are often reminded in our work that we cannot be a good member, we cannot represent our communities to the best of our abilities without the support of our families, without our friends and our communities. This is just as relevant for our police officers here in South Australia. They could not do their work as efficiently and as well as they do without the strong network of supporting people around them. I commend the motion to the house. I thank all our police officers and their families for the risks that they take every day.

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (12:22): For police throughout Australia, New Zealand, Papa New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, 29 September holds a special significance every year: it is Police Remembrance Day. This is a significant day of commemoration, when police pause to honour officers who have lost their lives in the service of their communities. It is a day, too, when police officers remember colleagues who have lost their lives through illness or other circumstances.

National Police Remembrance Day was instigated in April 1988 during the conference of Commissioners of Police of Australasia and the South West Pacific region. It was unanimously agreed that the day would be observed and services held on 29 September, the feast day of St Michael the Archangel, patron saint of police. National Police Remembrance Day is a day when all members of the police, both serving and retired, their families and the wider community, take time to reflect on the dangers of police work and pay tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

The selfless commitment of our police in the face of the constant risk of danger is so often taken for granted, but we should acknowledge our debt to every man and woman in the service. I have a family member who serves in the police force, and I am fully aware of the concerns that we have when they are out in the line of duty in their everyday working life.

It is important that we come together to remember those who have fallen in their service. I have always had an enormous amount of respect for police officers in our community and this has only been enhanced as I have come to know the police officers who work at the Holden Hill police office in my electorate of Torrens. I pay my respects to the officers, families and colleagues of police officers who have fallen in the line of duty as today we acknowledge Police Remembrance Day.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (12:24): It gives me great pleasure to support the member for Little Para in moving this motion. I know that all members who have had the opportunity to speak do so very genuinely and I am confident that all other members who have not had the chance to speak today would also support this motion unanimously in this chamber.

Police work is risky. I suppose the difficulty for police is the risk that the risk itself might come up that day, if that makes sense. Some days for a police officer can be pretty straightforward, in the same way as they can be for most people in their work. Occasionally, though, a day for a police officer will be very risky and very dangerous. The key is that police officers just cannot plan for this.

They cannot say, 'Today I'll take the easy path,' or, 'Today I'm feeling fit and wide awake and energetic and I'll take a risky path today.' It is just not an option for police officers. Every single day they face the real probability that today might be a very dangerous day. That is a very difficult thing, I am sure, for police officers and their families to try to get their head around—and yet they do it and they do it day after day. I thank them very genuinely and very warmly for that.

Policing is very much about trust. Our parliament creates laws and our courts try to deal with people who fall foul of those laws, either deliberately or accidentally. The police are the people in the middle with a great deal of authority and a great deal of power with regard to implementing the laws. One of the things that is critical, and always in the forefront of my mind with regard to policing, is that the police need to be given the opportunity to use their judgement when enforcing laws. I think that overwhelmingly they do that appropriately.

Of course, it is not always possible that every single officer on every single day does it just right, but having that discretion about how to enforce the laws our parliament creates I think is incredibly important, and that the public has trust in the police to use that discretion well is incredibly important. Year after year, our South Australian police officers are judged by the public of South Australia as the most trusted police force of all the states in Australia. I think it is important that they are recognised for that. Again, it is not that they can get it right every single time, but overwhelmingly they do get it right, and I think that is very important.

I would like to pay particular tribute to regional police officers. Much like people who work in other professional areas, usually when you work in a regional area you need to be better at a wider range of skills. General practitioners in a medical business are good examples of that. If you are a city-based GP, you can really confine the work you do and limit it to a fairly narrow scope if you want to. However, if you are a country-based GP, you need to deal with whatever is going to come through the door and you have no choice. Country-based GPs do things that only specialists in the city would do—and policing is no different.

Police officers in the country and regional areas, particularly in very small, often one-officer stations in regional areas, need to be prepared to deal with absolutely anything that comes their way that day, in a way that their city-based colleagues do not have to because there is always much more support very close at hand. So, I would like to pay particular tribute to the regional-based police officers who serve us. When I say 'us', I do not just mean regionally based people like me; I mean all of us.

Even city-based people can benefit from country-based police officers if they go on a holiday in a region. It might be that, unfortunately, you are involved in a car crash or it might be that you have some crime committed against you in a regional area. It will be a regional police officer who will support you in that way, and they need to be more flexible, more diverse, more broadly skilled than their city-based colleagues. I really do commend them for that.

On Police Remembrance Day I look forward to attending a service at Port Augusta with my friends who are local serving police officers there, and also with other friends who are not police officers but who will come to show their respect and support for the police at the service at 11 o'clock on 29 September. I encourage all members of parliament to participate in their local electorates if it is at all possible for them to do so.

The last thing I would like to say on this topic is that a couple of years ago I was able to visit the national memorial to police in Canberra on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, and it is a truly beautiful memorial, and I really encourage all members of the South Australian parliament to do that when they get the opportunity. All of us have a reason to go to Canberra for meetings of one sort or another with our federal colleagues at some time throughout the year, so I encourage anyone who has an extra 15 or 20 minutes on a trip to Canberra to call past the national police memorial, which is a really special, beautiful and appropriate memorial.

It is national and not just for ACT police or just for Australian Federal Police but actually for police across the entire nation, and it is a wonderful way to mark respect and pay tribute to the officers across Australia who have lost their life in their service as police officers, and of course the people who are most important to us, the South Australian police officers, who have done so are respected at that memorial too.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (12:30): I have spoken before about my family member, and I am pleased to support the motion moved by the member for Little Para today. I am wondering whether he might include the other state and territory police as well as South Australian and Federal Police, but that is his business. I particularly would like to talk about paragraph (c) of the member's motion as my great-great-uncle, Constable William Hyde, was murdered in the line of duty on 2 January 1909. He was shot by highway men. He was pulled from a game of cricket—he was a big strong man—and is fondly remembered by our family. I am not sure what he would think of his great- great-nephew standing up in parliament over 100 years later a couple of times to speak about him.

He was a formidable man and the Police Association of South Australia very appropriately and to their eternal credit undertook to upgrade Uncle Bill's (he was always referred to as Uncle Bill in our family) grave in West Terrace cemetery. In January 2009 my late great-aunt, who at that stage I think was 95, and my late mother, who was 85, both attended the unveiling of the upgraded grave. It was a great day, the police commissioner was there, and quite a crowd. We then all repaired to the Police Association to remember Uncle Bill and have a few discussions and chats around lunch and a couple of beers in memory of him.

He was only 35, and there are ample perpetual memories of him around—the Hyde Park gardens and what not—which are a testament to his bravery on that day when he was shot. The murderers were never caught, regrettably they escaped, but it is significant that here we are, well over 100 years later, still remembering Uncle Bill Hyde. His memory goes on in our family.

I am enlarging somewhat on the police, particularly SAPOL: I commend them for the work they do. It is said from time to time that most people only want to see a police officer when they need one—most of the time they do not want to see them. Within SAPOL itself there is a bit of competition and not so gracious words from officers of some sections about sections of others, but I guess that is the same in every job. They are put in inherently difficult situations reasonably regularly, and with particularly the rise lately of methamphetamines and ice in our nation they are at increasing levels of danger and never know just what is around the corner, as was put earlier by someone.

Members interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: Do you mind? When they go to work in the morning or the afternoon or evening, they are not quite sure what they are going to encounter, and I think that is indicative of the courage they show. I have a good relationship with the police in my electorate. We meet and talk from time to time, and I am quite happy to pass on information.

I think one of the problems we have is that the general public is reluctant to pass on information to the police, whether it be drug related or anything else for that matter, for fear of intimidation. There is a latent fear that the perpetrators of such actions will get to them in legal actions. I find that unfortunate, so I do encourage people in my electorate, if they have a problem and they are not prepared to ring Crime Stoppers or their local police, to let me know and I will follow through on it.

Our society is reliant on law and order, and in our state particularly, it is reliant on a police force that is full of integrity, takes its job very seriously and does the right thing. From time to time, there is the odd errant police officer who has ended up in a penal institution. That is unfortunate, but that is just how things go.

As the member for Stuart, I think, mentioned regarding police officers in regional areas, they are very much part of the community. They get involved in community activities, go to football, play sport and are part and parcel of the community. Of course, they have to go about their job, and it is difficult for them to be out some days going about their job when they have perhaps kicked the footy or played bowls or something and then have to deal with one of their constituents in another matter the next day, but that is life, I am afraid. That is just how things are.

The member for Little Para is, I believe, a former police officer himself, so it is appropriate that he puts forward this motion today at this time. I am hopeful that, in every year to follow, we do pay tribute to our police officers in this house. I think it is good to spend a short time on a motion such as this. I commend the motion to the house and remember my great-great-uncle, William Hyde—Uncle Bill.

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (12:37): Just briefly, I thank everyone for their contributions—the minister, the member for Morialta, the member for Stuart, who always makes a thoughtful contribution on this topic, the member for Torrens and, of course, the member for Finniss. I just want to touch on a couple of things. I, too, hope we keep doing this every year. I hope someone, whether it is me or someone else, brings this motion, because it is important to keep remembering, and I hope the number stays at 61. I hope that number is etched on our memory now.

Both the members for Morialta and Finniss mentioned the restraint and the professionalism shown generally by the South Australian police and I think that contributes, particularly now that we have not seen a death since 2002. I think that is largely due to qualities such as their professionalism and their restraint. They deal with situations with difficult people not in a confrontational way, generally speaking. They try to resolve things through talking rather than through action or violence, as we see in other countries.

The members for Finniss and Stuart also touched on the role of the country police officer. When I was going through the job, that was an archetype—the country cop who was involved in every aspect of the community—and we are seeing that more and more, happily. Elizabeth police, I am pleased to say, are really leading the way in community-led policing and, I think, in many ways they emulate what comes naturally to a country police officer. With those words, I commend the motion to the house.

Motion carried.