Police Staffing

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (14:48): Supplementary: can the minister advise the house whether he has any knowledge whatsoever of an intention to remove up to 27 public servants in police stations in the metropolitan area who currently backup and support our operational police by doing a lot of administrative work? Does he have any idea whether these jobs are guaranteed or whether they are going?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:48): I don't know how many times the Hon. Mr Brokenshire wants me to keep going around and speaking on what we are doing around policing policy in this state. We give the police commissioner the capacity to be able to run his police force and run the operations around the police force. The honourable member would know that the police commissioner is in the process of delivering a very substantial piece of organisational reform. We support him in his endeavours to do that. It is ensuring that we have resources in the right place, and the honourable member has attended or had representatives attend, I believe—

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: I've been there.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: —has attended two briefs around organisational reform that is going on within SAPOL. This government is committed to making sure that SAPOL has all the resources they reasonably can have. That commitment has been demonstrated by dramatically increasing the amount of resources that SAPOL has, both in personnel and in dollars. On top of that, we are also acknowledging and supporting the operational independence of SAPOL to be able to get out there and do the job.