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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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CHILD PROTECTION

Mr PISONI (Unley) (14:23): Supplementary, if I may, sir. Given that the Attorney-General advised the parliament that the alleged sex offender has been under police surveillance since his initial arrest, which was in March 2011, is it acceptable that the alleged sex offender was not under surveillance on this interstate trip?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:23): The situation is that the honourable member, if I am correct, is referring to an answer I gave to a question a week or two ago. That answer was based on information provided to me through SAPOL to the effect that, I think if my memory serves me correctly, there have been both periodic visits by police officers and covert observation. As the Minister for Police very eloquently put it yesterday, covert operation is by its very nature covert.

I am not aware of the particulars of that, but police do not, certainly, advise me of the highly secret and covert matters that they are involved in. It is not appropriate that they should do so, and I do not believe it is even the case that ministers for police are routinely informed of covert matters, certainly not the detail of those matters. That is just something which is completely outside of the information that is available to executive government, and for very good reason, because those covert operations are there to protect the citizens of South Australia.

Those covert operations put police officers at considerable risk of personal harm in many cases. Those covert operations mean that there are times when there are things which actually are known to police which are held very tightly and for any information at all to be given about those covert operations can actually put people at risk and operations at risk, so it is for very good reason that we are not brought into those conversations.

Mr PISONI: Supplementary if I may, sir?

The SPEAKER: How many supplementaries is this?

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