Police Ombudsman

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (20:04): I move:

That this council—

1. Notes the recently tabled Acting Police Ombudsman’s annual report;

2. Notes the strongly held concerns of the Police Association of South Australia in respect of the annual report; and

3. Challenges the aspect of the annual report which attacks the Police Association of South Australia.

This is an important motion. I apologise to my colleagues that I have not been in a position to bring in this motion earlier, but the reality is that it is only a few weeks ago that we had the annual report of the Acting Police Ombudsman laid on the table in the House of Assembly; in fact it was only on 26 September 2017. I was concerned when I saw aspects of the report. Since then, there has been some media comment on it as well.

Before going on, I have a letter from the Police Association of South Australia to the Hon. Chris Picton MP, Minister for Police. I seek leave to table this letter rather than read it.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: I could read in the second document, but I seek leave to also table it. It is a story by Mr Nigel Hunt headed 'Police lash integrity slur' in the Adelaide Advertiser from 1 November 2017.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Those two are tabled. That will save some time tonight. I know that members have a lot on their plate tonight, so I appreciate the concurrence of you as Acting President and also of my colleagues.

The focus of the motion that I have moved is that the house acknowledges the strongly held concerns of the Police Association of South Australia in respect of the annual report of the Acting Police Ombudsman. This association has outlined in the letter (now tabled) to the Minister for Police its robust disagreement with several of the ombudsman's assertions. Amongst those it repudiates is that it is a partisan player in the operation of the Police Disciplinary Tribunal and that it is not well placed to assess whether the structure of a police disciplinary framework is in the public interest. The association considers that the effect of these and other assertions was to portray the organisation and its members in a false and potentially damaging light.

I will finish now with a couple of other points because colleagues and the wider community can see, once those two documents are published in Hansard, the concerns that I put to the parliament on behalf of the Police Association, which I must say is really on behalf primarily of the 4,000 members.

Under the Westminster system, we have something that I strongly believe in, and I am sure my colleagues do, which is, when it comes to law, you are innocent until proven guilty. When there are complaints or reports on a police officer, my observation is that it is the opposite: they are actually guilty until proven innocent.

What I am saying is that, when there are issues regarding integrity structures that police have to look at regarding a complaint or a report on a police officer, it becomes quite difficult for that police officer. The police officer does not have a lot of places that they can go to seek advice. That is why 99 per cent of police officers are members of the South Australian Police Association. The Police Association, I would expect, would be there to actually stand up for and support their police when there is a complaint laid against an officer that has to be investigated.

I know from personal experience, from many years working with police, that the Police Association still wants the law absolutely upheld. There are occasions when they can see straight away that a police officer has erred or breached the code of conduct or, in cases, committed an offence. They do not necessarily go in to bat for or support them. If they have committed a criminal offence, then they realise that goes before the courts.

Most of the complaints about police are quite frivolous but can be very concerning to individual police officers and their families. There tends to be the attitude within society today, if a police officer picks up certain people for an offence, that, 'We didn't like the fact that that police officer picked us up for speeding'—the person was in breach of the law by speeding—'We didn't like the fact that the police officer then looked over our car, and we didn't like the fact that they defected the car.' Therefore, they will raise some allegation about the behaviour or how the police officer handled the matter and it becomes a complaint. You can imagine how that becomes quite stressful for an officer. Those investigations can take some time. There is a trend in society, unfortunately, that that seems to be growing.

I strongly support what the Police Association has said in that letter to the Minister for Police, the Hon. Chris Picton. There are other issues that need to be considered as well, but I will leave it at that at the moment. I advise the house that, given we will be getting up from the parliament after the next sitting week, as far as I know, I intend to put this to a vote. Certainly, as far as I know, we have at the most two sitting weeks if the government takes the optional sitting week, which I understand probably will not occur before an election. We are then up for about five months. I advise my colleagues that I intend to put this to a vote on the next Wednesday of sitting.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon T.J. Stephens.