Police Stations

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (14:32): Supplementary: given the minister's answer, can the minister therefore explain to the house why he is allowing the closing of police stations, including the McLaren Vale Police Station, and the removal of night patrols from the Aldinga Police Station?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:33): I thank the honourable member for his question. This is now the second time that the Hon. Mr Brokenshire has sought to ask a question that he should know better about. He is a former police minister who I know all too well fully understands the importance of having a degree of confidence in the police commissioner to be able to perform his functions and his duties in a way that is removed from the political process.

The member should know better than anybody the importance of there remaining a degree of separation between the police minister instructing the police commissioner or not. He should appreciate that more than anyone. He should appreciate the fact that when it comes to making decisions about what is essentially operational matters we should be removed from that process and place our confidence in the police commissioner doing his job effectively.

That said, the honourable member has asked about the question of closing police stations. SAPOL is undertaking a review of the way it best allocates its resources. We are a government that has been increasing SAPOL's resources and it is a reasonable expectation of the community and, indeed, this government to make sure that we have an efficiently operating police force. It is not okay for SAPOL or any other bureaucracy or agency, for that matter, to sit back and accept increasing resources but not have a good hard look at themselves to make sure that they are set up and structured in a way that is relevant to a modern community. Things change.

We would reasonably expect agencies of all nature to be looking to make sure that they are delivering their services in the most efficient, productive way. They shouldn't be resting on their laurels. We wouldn't want to see any government agency be the recipient of more taxpayer funds, more resources, and then use that as a means to rest on their laurels and not explore the opportunities to improve their service delivery, which is why I endorse the police commissioner actively looking within their own organisation to see if there aren't ways we can improve service delivery, albeit in an environment of increasing resources; hence, he is undertaking an internal SAPOL review. I actively endorse him doing that.

I actively encourage him to be innovative in any ideas that he can come up with about delivering more efficiently and more productively all those resources that this government has made available to SAPOL. We await the outcome of that process. We would actively encourage any member of the community, whether that be the Hon. Mr Brokenshire or other members of the community more broadly, to actively play a role in that consultation process that SAPOL themselves are engaging in.

We will await the outcome of that review. It is something that I am keeping abreast of. Indeed, I've got a meeting with the police commissioner tomorrow to receive the most recent update about the work that he is undertaking. It is a process I encourage, and I have confidence that, when it comes to making the operational decisions in relation to the police force, our police commissioner will do the right thing. I would hope and expect that the Hon. Mr Brokenshire understands the importance of letting the police commissioner make the key operational decisions that he should.