Police Workers Compensation

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:16): Yes, thank you; rebuilding Rome, I think. A question again to the Minister for Police. Does the minister consider being shot in the face in the line of duty as a reasonable justification for full workers compensation entitlements to be supported? Oh, come on John!

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform) (14:16): No. This is a question about compensation. This is a question about the compensation, and can I just make this very clear: first of all, I regard that police officer as being one of the fine South Australians who are out there working all the time to look after us, and that man along with others to their credit have got back to work. He is actually back at work that man, and it is to his great credit and the credit of everybody concerned that he has been able to do that, and I take my hat off to him.

The second point I would make is: why on earth PASA would think it is in the long or medium or short-term interest of that man's recovery for him to become a mascot in this campaign I don't know.

Ms Chapman: He was out there today.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I don't know, but can I say this: the thing that they did not say early on when they were making all these rhetorical flourishes, histrionic statements about him being tossed in the wastepaper basket, or whatever it was, what they did not tell anybody was that, before the campaign had even begun, the police commissioner had made an interim determination that that man by reason of his injuries and the requirement of long-term surgery and other treatment would be deemed 30 per cent or more incapacitated, which means that any suggestion that he was sitting waiting to fall off the edge of some cliff is nonsense.

So, it is all very well to be asking questions about whether or not we think this man has been injured in the course of duty. Of course he was, and it is a terrible thing to happen to him, but to suggest, as PASA has, that the police commissioner was so indifferent to this man's condition that he could not even be bothered doing something about it when in fact he has—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —is actually something that I think—

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is warned for the second and last time.

The Hon. J.J. Snelling: He's ruining your big day.

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Health is called to order.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —Mr Speaker, if PASA was to do the right thing on behalf of its members it would be courteous for it to actually publicly say to the police commissioner that it apologises for having made the suggestion or inference out there in the public domain that the police commissioner was so uncaring of the police who serve in his police force that he would not attempt to do something to look after this man's welfare, and he has done it.