Police Staffing

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (15:12): Supplementary: minister, in light of your answer, will you confirm then that all the FTEs that were saved as part of these closures and reductions will not, as you say, be sitting behind a desk doing paperwork?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health, Minister Assisting the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (15:12): I refer to my previous answer, where I said that I will take the specifics of that on notice and come back to the house in regard to that. I would state that this is—

Mr Wingard: Hang on, if they're not behind desks, where are they?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We are seeing more and more police operating in our state. We are hiring and training 313 extra police officers to work in our state. I was just at Fort Largs Police Academy earlier today, where we had another 16 police graduating. I would like to congratulate them on behalf of the government, those new cadets who will be going into our police force, scattered across the state and providing a valuable service on our front line, protecting our state.

Mr Duluk: Where? What time? Not after 9 o'clock at Holden Hill, they won't be.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We know that crime has dropped over the past 10 years. This is something where this government has invested significant resources in our police, significant resources in fighting crime, significant—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We have also added significant powers to our police as well—

The SPEAKER: Point of order.

Mr GARDNER: Standing order 98: the minister is not being germane to the 30 police officers in question.

The SPEAKER: No, I think the minister is being germane and is managing to do it against a wall of noise from members on my left, in particular the member for Davenport, who is on two warnings.

The Hon. J.M. Rankine: You're soft on crime; we have seen the results.

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is warned. Minister for Police.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a government that believes in more police on our front line. We are recruiting 313 extra police so that, by the middle of next year, we will have them in service and operating across our state, providing important roles. We are also giving them the tools that they need to provide community service to our state, whether it is body-worn cameras or whether it is tablet technology.

We are very happy on this side of the house to invest in our police, to back our police. When it comes to making the difficult reforms that the police commissioner has been doing to ensure that we have a modern police force, a police force that is responsive to the needs of our community, we are very happy to work with him. We have seen some people suggesting that they would want to become the minister and issue orders to the police about operational activities they want to see, whether it is drug sniffer dogs checking lunchboxes in public schools—

Mr KNOLL: Point of order, Mr Speaker: I now believe that standing order 98 will come into play.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order.