Renmark Police Station

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:00): My question is to the Minister for Police. As the minister, can you assure me and the Renmark community that the Renmark Police Station will remain open in 2018 once the completion of the Berri Police Station upgrade is completed?

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) (15:01): Thank you to the member for his question. I don't have the exact details in front of me, but I am happy to investigate that further and talk to the police commissioner about that. I think it is a very important principle, and in fact it is part of the legislation of this parliament, that the police commissioner runs the police service not the police minister. It is not my intention as police minister to issue directions to the police commissioner about the deployment of his resources and the deployment of police around the state.

Our job is to provide resources for the police, and that is what we have been doing by providing unprecedented resources in terms of the fact that we are training at the moment 313 extra police, so our Police Academy is bursting at the seams. In fact, in the next two weeks we are having our first double graduation of this package at the Police Academy because there are so many more police being graduated that we need to do two at the same time, which is fantastic for communities across the state to ensure that we have more police out on the beat across South Australia.

That is our role as the government—to make sure the police commissioner has the resources that they need. What is not our role is to issue directions to the police commissioner to say, 'Well, this is what we want you to investigate, or, 'This is where we want you to put a particular police officer or the like.' Unfortunately, that is what the opposition want to do if they are elected: they want to unprecedentedly issue directions to the police commissioner to say—

Mr GARDNER: Point of order: the minister is debating and, by the sounds of it, picking quarrels.

The SPEAKER: The minister quarrelling? I will pay careful attention.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is absolutely a principle that the police commissioner should be in charge of the police services and force across the state. I will raise this issue with the police commissioner in terms of what the appropriate planning is for the Renmark Police Station. Of course, there will be resources across the state, including at Renmark, to make sure that our community is being protected and our police are out on the beat protecting South Australia.

The SPEAKER: Member for Chaffey, supplementary.