Question Time

POLICE RESOURCES

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:22): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Police a question about police resources.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: On Monday, The Advertiser reported that South Australian police employees have breached federal copyright laws by illegally copying and burning movie DVDs. The report quoted an internal email to police management stating that a computer audit 'had identified a number of instances where commercial DVD movies had been copied to the hard drives of police computers and possibly burnt to disks'.

Police sources have told The Advertiser that an official investigation will not be conducted. It is a claim which is supported by an internal email, which also maintains that managers must remind members of the policy relating to the use of SAPOL computers. On Monday morning, on 891, Superintendent Peter Harvey told listeners that a full investigation was yet to begin. He said that there were several hundred suspicious files, and because of the way they were titled it might mean that they are movies. Harvey said that, at present, 30 files have been flagged as of concern, and if any breaches of copyright are identified as part of the audit process they will be referred to the internal investigation branch of SAPOL.

In relation to inappropriate use of police equipment, the head of the Police Complaints Authority Mr Anthony Wainwright stated in a letter to the Police Commissioner that police video tapes were sold by the community programs section of the South Coast LSA. The sale of these tapes, which were supposedly wiped clean, was halted when it came to light that they were not properly scrubbed. One such tape, which made its way to Today Tonight, showed where a taped movie was followed by footage from within the interview room at the Christies Beach Police Station. My questions are:

1. Can the minister assure the public that footage captured within South Australian police stations, in particular, videos of investigations and the use for those purposes, has not made its way into the public domain?

2. Has the minister been given any indication of the number of SAPOL staff who have potentially breached copyright laws, and has SAPOL advised the minister at what point it would order a formal investigation into the illegal and inappropriate application of SAPOL computers?

3. Given the recommendation by State Coroner Mark Johns that a review of the Police Complaints Act will be made, what assurance does the public have that an internal investigation into the illegal burning of DVDs will be open and transparent?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Police, Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning) (14:24): Yet again we have the shadow minister for police attacking our police force. Never in the history of this state has the opposition been so determined to attack ordinary police officers in this state going about their business and it is about time—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Yes, I will answer it. I will certainly answer it, but I will answer it in such a way that it will expose your disgraceful tactics, with your scurrilous, unfounded allegation. The shadow minister for police is quite happy to quote an Advertiser report. Why didn't you quote the letter from the Police Commissioner in The Advertiser responding to that article? Why didn't you quote him when he answered some of those false allegations? No, he will not do that. He is quite happy to come in here and repeat it, but he is too incompetent—or his office is—even to know that the Police Commissioner has actually responded to that particular article that was in The Advertiser.

Again, in the last question we had this suggestion about the Police Complaints Authority; the innuendo that this opposition is trying to make is that, somehow or other, the police are not subject to independent investigation. We have had all sorts of rubbish; even the Hon. John Darley was quoted the other day as saying we need an independent body to investigate police complaints. Well, what the hell is the Police Complaints Authority if it is not independent? It is a separate barrister that is actually doing it. We are having all this rubbish repeated by a number of members opposite to serve their own ends, but very little of it is founded on substance.

Basically, the question was: can I guarantee that police are always doing the right thing? That is essentially the question. Of course I cannot do that. But what I can say is that the police will investigate any allegations and, if the honourable member has any evidence that the police are misbehaving, then he should take it to the proper people. We had that nonsense yesterday when he was suggesting—the disgusting suggestion—that somehow or another we needed an ICAC because the Coroner said so when, in fact, he said no such thing. There was no allegation whatsoever that police had been involved in corruption in any way, shape or form in the Coroner's report—none whatsoever—and yet this sleazy allegation, this further attack on the police force of our state, comes from members opposite.

This is very typical, but I am not going to sit here and let the police force of our state be attacked by the opposition under parliamentary privilege. If the honourable member has anything of substance, let him come out and say so.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Lucas has a supplementary question deriving from the answer.