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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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NATIONAL POLICE REMEMBRANCE DAY

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:31): I move:

That this house—

(a) notes that 29 September 2013 is National Police Remembrance Day;

(b) pays tribute to the 61 members of the South Australian police force who have paid the ultimate sacrifice whilst performing their duties as police officers; and

(c) acknowledges the dangers facing the men and women who serve in our police force to provide us with a safer and more secure community.

Today is the 24th National Police Remembrance Day, which we will celebrate tomorrow with ceremonies all over our state of South Australia. Those ceremonies will remember and honour those South Australian officers who have died while on duty. I will be in Port Augusta. It is our 24th official remembrance day, but our police have been serving us for 175 years now and over that time we have lost 61 officers while on duty. The first were Mounted Constable John Carter, aged 22, and Lance Corporal William Wickam, aged 24, both on 7 May 1847 by drowning. Most recent was Senior Constable Bogdan Sobczak, aged 52, on 26 May 2002, who died in a motor vehicle accident.

Very sadly, police officers have died in the line of duty from six drownings, two accidental shootings, four horse accidents, one stabbing, eight murders, one from thirst, two assaults, one case of sunstroke, two cases of pneumonia, one bicycle accident, and four by bushfire, including what must have been an incredibly sad situation where we lost three officers—Special Constables Mervyn Casey and Colin Kroemer, and Sergeant Cecil William Sparkes—all on the same day, 19 January 1951, when they were trapped and perished together in a bushfire in the Adelaide Hills. There have been 25 motor vehicle accidents, one gassing, one hit and run by a motor vehicle, and two other unspecified accidents.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of loss of life has been from motor vehicle accidents. However, extremely concerning is that the second most frequent cause of death while on duty of a serving South Australia Police officer has been murder. Inspector Richard Pettinger in 1862, Mounted Constable Harry Pearce in 1881, Foot Constable Albert Ring in 1908, Foot Constable William Hyde in 1909, Foot Constable John Holman in 1929, Senior Constable Harold Pannell in 1957, First Class Constable Lyncon Williams in 1985,and Senior Constable David Barr in 1990 were all murdered. All of the 61 officers, regardless of how they died, had families, friends and colleagues who would have been devastated by their deaths.

In addition to those officers who have lost their life while on duty, there are the countless number of police men and women who have been injured while on duty. It is a very difficult balance between serving our state, weighing up the appropriate level of personal risk to take and not over-reacting when under pressure. Probably none of us here in this place, with the exception of the member for Little Para, who was a sworn police officer before becoming a member of parliament, can fully understand those pressures.

Nowadays, officers are under extreme media, internal, public and political scrutiny. Every moment of every day, they are under scrutiny, even when off duty. Very importantly, it is never excusable for a police officer to over-react and use excessive force, but it must be recognised what pressure police officers are under to make and act upon split-second decisions on behalf of the public and simultaneously ensure their own and their colleagues' personal safety.

Let us remember that, on average, over the last 175 years that SAPOL has been in existence, a South Australian police has died while on duty every 2.9 years; more frequently than one death every three years for the last 175 years. I ask what other public workplace or industry outside the military defence forces is there in our state or our nation with such risks over such a long time? Fortunately, it has now been just over a decade since Senior Constable Sobczak died at work.

Let's hope that modern times and modern methods are significantly improving the alarming average of one death in every 2.9 years. Every day that each of our 4,500 South Australian police officers goes to work might be a day when he or she faces a life and death situation. I thank each of them for the fact that they face the personal risks they do in order to protect our community, and I honour those 61 officers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN (Napier—Minister for Finance, Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (11:38): I rise to support and commend the motion of the shadow minister for police. In 2013, National Police Remembrance Day is being held throughout Australia and the South Pacific on Friday 27 September.

National Police Remembrance Day is traditionally held on 29 September, that being the feast day of St Michael, the Archangel, the patron saint of policemen. As it falls near the equinox, it is associated in the Northern Hemisphere with the beginning of autumn and the shortening of the days. For us in the Southern Hemisphere, the feast day of St Michael's heralds longer days and warmer weather, and I think that there is probably some significance in that association with better days and milder weather.

National Police Remembrance Day is a significant day of commemoration, where people can reflect on each individual police force and remember those officers killed on duty. It provides an opportunity to honour all police who have given their life serving the Australian and South West Pacific communities. In South Australia, it is no different and, this year, as we commemorate the officers who have been subject to violence, which has cost careers and lives, we should pause to consider just what that means in a world which is changing with accelerating pace. It does not escape the attention of the government or the media that, over the past year, assaults against SAPOL officers have risen. This should make us ponder its cause. Is it merely a statistically anomaly or does it point to something deeper and more troubling—a symptom of a shift in our social attitudes?

An increasing amount of psychological literature is focused on discovering the origins and manifestations of antisocial and pro-social attitudes, and how those attitudes can be subject to change. Our carefully woven social fabric is coming under strain from a multitude of different pressures. As the way we communicate and collaborate changes in ways we could not imagine, allegiances shift and splinter. Not all of these forces are benign. History is replete with lessons of the danger of viewing any group as the 'other'. Those in this chamber require little explanation as to the diligence of our officers and the importance of their work. We should think carefully about those figures because they suggest that, possibly, perpetrators of violence against police officers increasingly view them as not of the same community.

Perhaps they regard our officers as stony-faced arbiters, peering down from above. That is an abiding image for some, particularly those who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law. I also think that we have an issue with alcohol-fuelled violence, in addition to this notion of police being 'other', we have the added influence of late night uncontrolled drinking compounding this view held with some individuals as to what police officers represent.

The convergence of National Police Remembrance Day with the figures of police assaults should make us think about how and why such violence is perpetrated. Antipolice attitudes find their physical expression in violence. The persistence of such attitudes, held by a distinct minority in the face of all contravening evidence, is not only a cause for concern but also for action. I think the Attorney-General, with a series of legislative remedies, is very much pushing to address some of the root causes of increasing violence towards police officers.

National Police Remembrance Day is the perfect opportunity to honour the sacrifice made by SAPOL officers while initiating a conversation about how to change the minds which need changing. Sober commemoration of the past will also help to ensure that the work of SAPOL officers is better appreciated. Our police force is not external to our society; it is such a fundamental part that, without it, our society would cease to resemble itself. My discussions with police officers made me very much aware that this is the motivating driver of their decision to become a police officer and to remain in the police force. They do see themselves as the thin blue line, the line that holds the division, if you like, between civilised society and anarchy.

Our police officers guard the community more effectively when they are acknowledged as being part of it. Acknowledging this involves understanding that the police walk amongst us. Not only are police as vulnerable to the same workplace stress as all of us, in fact, more so, they are subject to physical harm each time they don their uniform. For the length of their career, a police officer belongs as much to the public as to their family, and I have heard police officers make this comment as well, that policing is not a job that they leave behind when they clock off and go home, it is job that occupies them around the clock, 365 days a year.

The 61 SAPOL officers killed in the course of their service since records have been kept are deeply missed and very much appreciated by South Australians right across the community. They remind us that, although technology improves and society changes, the dangers to our officers remain the same. This number contains only the barest traces of the tragedy of the statistic, and I commend the shadow minister for police for the amount of historic research that went into his speech but also highlighting some of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of a large number of these officers and the fact that they were cold-bloodedly murdered.

In the past 12 months, of the three Australian officers killed in service, fortunately none were from SAPOL. It is in part because this government has funded SAPOL to a degree commensurate with their value to society. I have heard no comment from any section of the community begrudging the commitment that this government has made to the adequate funding of SAPOL.

We can keep the lives of our officers from falling into the lap of the gods and that is why we have more sworn officers than ever before and that is why our SAPOL men and women have more colleagues and allies to join them on their dangerous assignments. That is why there has been a 40 per cent decline in reported crime in the past decade and that is why, although we celebrate National Police Remembrance Day with the same reverence, we hope that there is an ever-dwindling set of names to add to the memorial.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (11:45): I congratulate the member for Stuart for bringing this motion to the house that notes that 29 September 2013 is National Police Remembrance Day and pays tribute to the 61 members of the South Australian police force who have paid the ultimate sacrifice while performing their duties as police officers. The second part acknowledges the dangers facing the men and women who serve in our police force and provide us with a safer and more secure community.

The first part is about remembering those police officers who have died in the course of duty. Could I just particularly mention Foot Constable Albert Edward Ring who was shot and killed while on duty on 29 March 1908. Constable Ring was aged 36 and was patrolling in Jetty Road, Glenelg. He was shot and killed by a man he had arrested earlier in the day for drunkenness. This just goes to show that, even for what we would consider relatively minor offences, police officers can pay the ultimate price. In my electorate of Morphett, we particularly remember the efforts of Constable Albert Ring.

Over the years, the reputation of the South Australian police has always been one of the best in the world, if not the best in the world. There have been very isolated cases where their behaviour has been called into question, and you only have to look at the reports of the Police Complaints Authority and the anticorruption squad. Their level of activity is a terrific indicator of what a wonderful police force we have in South Australia.

Having said that, though, it is a salient point that 61 members of the South Australian police force have paid the ultimate price and have died in the course of their duty. That is as a result of violence and crashes, and no doubt there will be many police who have died as a result of stress. As the old farmers say, 'It is not the work, it is the worry that kills you,' and certainly the high levels of stress that members of parliament work under is nothing compared to what the police officers of today work under. Out there on the front line, they have to deal with in some cases some seriously nasty people and in many cases people who are breaking the law, and having to deal with them is stressful and does take a toll on their health and their immune system.

The police officers' health will suffer because of the stress and certainly I know there are many officers who have to take stress leave, but in terms of the long-term effects of that stress on their health, I am sure there are people who have come down with cancers and health-related issues that have in some way been contributed to by the many years of dedicated service and the stress that is associated with it.

The need to protect our police officers by providing them with the best equipment, the best communications and the best social support is something that I think we are all conscious of. We recognise the fact that now in 2013 it is everything from high-speed car chases to the high level of mental illness in our society, where police officers are having to deal with a whole range of issues on a daily basis. They do it so well, those men and women.

I had the privilege of being the shadow minister for police for a period of time and was able to go to some of the graduation ceremonies and speak to those young men and women. Some of them were not so young because there were mature-age graduates coming in. It gave me confidence to know that we had people coming into our police force who were going to continue the high standard of service that we have seen for a long time.

The member for Mitchell reminds me that the other big issue that police are having to deal with, and we hear about it on a daily basis, is the drug problem and the drug addicts in our community. I think it was just yesterday we heard about hundreds of kilos of ephedrine being discovered that was on its way to be made into amphetamines. The drug scourge is something that the police must shake their heads at when they see lives being destroyed and the long-term penalty that people pay. The police are doing a terrific job, doing what they need to do, or what they have to do to try to save society from itself in those sorts of cases.

The other good thing that we are seeing in the South Australian police force in particular is a wide and very diverse range of backgrounds of police officers coming into the police service now. I remember when I was younger I wanted to join the fire brigade and my father, in his wisdom, steered me in other directions—although it is an exceptionally good job and I do enjoy being a member of the CFS—he thought that I was destined for other things and that has occurred.

I did want to join the police force for a short period there. I think I was the right height—that is the thing, you had to be the right height and you had to be a man. That has changed considerably now. We see people of all shapes and sizes and from all backgrounds coming in. I cannot remember the police officer's name, but we had a Sikh police officer and he was very proud to be wearing that police badge on his turban. It was good to see.

I was able to witness the graduation of some Aboriginal police officers who had served as community police officers. It is a terrific thing to see now the diversity of backgrounds and the experiences of our police officers. That can only go towards making the police force generally more aware, more receptive to what is happening in society nowadays and, hopefully, the collective knowledge will then contribute towards reducing the conflict between the police and perpetrators of crime so that we do not end up with police officers being injured or hurt or, in the worst cases, paying the ultimate sacrifice and being killed.

However, we remember today in this place that 29 September is National Police Remembrance Day and we certainly pay tribute to the 61 members of the South Australian police force who have paid the ultimate sacrifice while performing their duties as police officers.

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (11:53): I rise also to support the motion from the member for Stuart, and I do so out of great respect. It is interesting that in this chamber sometimes there are a lot of loud voices but today it is a rather sombre time where over 175 years we, who have lived with the benefit of the effort made by the police over that time, respect what they have done and respect the sacrifice of 61 of their own members in protecting all South Australians. We all have pretensions about what we might be able to achieve in life but I can put on the record categorically that I could never have been a police officer. I do not think I have the psychological make-up for it.

Mr Odenwalder: Too small.

Mr GRIFFITHS: The member for Little Para says I am too small—not quite sure about that! It takes a particular mindset to be responsible to the people you live with all the time. I say this from my point of view of having lived in country towns. I live in a town of 1,000 people which is the biggest I have lived in and for me it has always been a one or two-officer station with a mixture of male or female.

They are part of the social fabric of the community. They become involved in a lot of different things but they are also there to enforce the law. They have to try to find that balance between having a social life, and their family having a life, but also being held in sufficient respect that what they say is fact and has to be acted upon.

I know as a much younger man (in a moment of a temporary insanity, I think it must have been), in the community in which I grew up I did a thing in the main street that involved a vehicle, which I am not proud of. It was witnessed by a police officer and it was late in the evening on a Saturday night. I have never forgotten this chap's name; I will always remember it. From that time, my level of respect for the police just grew immensely, and I have always remembered it. He had seen what I had done and he came up to me and said, 'I'm giving you five minutes to get home, Steven. If you're there when I drive past, nothing more will be said about it.' I was, and I waved to him as he drove past, and I have respected that since. That is what I have tried to instil into my own children.

The Hon. M.F. O'Brien: There wasn't a bare bottom involved, was there?

Mr GRIFFITHS: Earlier in the evening there was—no, not the bare bottom. But it just shows that police officers deal with so many different areas. I have known officers who have been friends of mine that I have played sport with who have had to attend car accidents. They have seen people who they know who have passed away, and then they have the responsibility to go talk to family members and to relay what has occurred to a friend of theirs, in some cases. I know there are debriefing opportunities, and I know there is a chance to talk amongst their colleagues about it, but when you consider, psychologically, the impact that must have, it takes an exceptional sort of person, I think, to be a police officer, and especially ones who commit to a long time.

I used to take great pleasure in reading the Police Journal each time that it comes out. I do not read each story cover-to-cover, but I always make sure that I look at the comments from the retiring members. Some of those are relatively short-term—some can be a few years up to, say, five years—but there is an increasing number of people who have been in it for 30, 35 or 40 years, and for them it has been their working life. Without fault, they pay tribute to the friends that they have made within the police force and the assistance that the police force has provided to them.

But it should be us, indeed, who say thank you to them, because they have dealt with all these issues, and then suddenly they are in a different stage of their life where they are not associated with the day-to-day activities of what occurs, and they expected to suddenly transition their mind from a potentially very stressful situation to one where you are with your partner in life hopefully, you are spending a lot more time at home, and that creates tensions, too. So, there are issues to deal with all through their working life and post-working life.

I think we should always pay respect to the families of police officers, too. A great friend of mine was a police officer at Yorketown, and we would have pasty making days, I would babysit his kids and all that sort of thing, but there were so many occasions where he was called out in the absolute middle of the night to deal with a domestic issue or a car accident. It would take hours and hours, and then eventually he would get home, but he had to be able to turn his mind off from what he had dealt with to return to being a dad or a husband, and that must be very hard. So, for all our emergency services area, and the people who work in our hospitals, it just shows the challenge that it represents in life.

I do have some great news to relay. I was at the Yorke Peninsula Field Days yesterday, and minister, can I say congratulations to the police stand and exhibits that are there, because they won an award. Sergeant Paul Friend was the person who accepted it on behalf of the police force, and not only were the Field Days committee very excited to present it to him, but he relayed the fact that it is an opportunity for interaction to occur and for people to understand the activities of the police and to respect them more, to do the beer goggles test and all that sort of stuff. It caters for all ages, but he talked about the fact that it would be fun for people to go there, and I think that is what we need to do.

I know I have been very grateful in recent years, since being a member of parliament, that when issues are brought to my attention, I have been able to contact the police on a very confidential basis to get some background information on it, and I have been able to relay some things that do not impact upon what they might be doing, and they have been able to take actions on behalf of me. The most recent example I have of that is from yesterday, where a very difficult situation, which could have escalated quite seriously within a community, was able to be managed by a police force that responded very quickly to an issue and I hope has defused that.

I pay commendation to police officers all over South Australia and what they have done in 175 years. I particularly pay my deepest respects to the 61 officers who have passed in the service of these duties, and I think that 29 September is a day on which we should all reflect for just a little while about the sacrifices that have been made. I hope that forever and a day we continue to have great people stand up, prepared to make a commitment that will take them through many years, to make sure that South Australia is a great state.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:59): I am very pleased to stand up today and support this motion by the member for Stuart, because as fate would have it, I believe that I am the only member of this place in both houses who has lost a relative, as a police officer, who was murdered on duty. That officer was Foot Constable William Hyde; he died in 1909, and was my great-great uncle.

In 2009, the Police Association rededicated his grave in West Terrace Cemetery, which I attended at the time. Commissioner Hyde (no relation, I might add) attended, and I am very grateful to the Police Association for what they did. As a matter of interest for the house, Foot Constable William Hyde was shot five times by a gunman in Kensington, South Australia, on 2 January 1909. He fought hard for his life, but he died two days later.

He had actually been playing cricket that morning, and he got a message that there were some people near the tramways trust looking fairly devious. He went from the cricket down there to investigate, and they pulled a gun on him and shot him. There were never, ever arrested, and they disappeared—they were seen loitering near the Marryatville Hotel, actually.

When we had the remembrance in 2009, my mother, who is now just on 90, and my auntie Annie, who has since passed away, but was 94 at the time, both came. The then deputy leader of Liberal Party (who is the current deputy leader of the Liberal Party) was there, as were the shadow police minister at the time (David Ridgway) and me. It was actually a very poignant moment.

It is to be remembered that Adelaide was a much smaller place in 1909 than it is in 2013, but the reality is that my great-great uncle's funeral was attended by 15,000 people in the City of Adelaide; it was quite amazing. The cortege went past the town hall and the bells tolled, and he was buried at West Terrace. They never forget. He was the 18th of 61 South Australian police officers to die in the line of duty since 1838.

It is something that has gone down through our family. We are a mixture of Irish, Scottish, English, Jewish, Cornish, Welsh and just about everything else, like many others in this place, but he has always been referred to in the family as 'Uncle Bill', and the story will go down through the generations. We are very proud that one member of our family served Australia, more particularly South Australia, as a police officer.

We are very saddened by the fact that he was murdered, but very proud of what he did. Indeed, many members of my family have served in the military since then—not so much the police. It is a good time to remember that, just before National Police Remembrance Day. It is also good to acknowledge the dangers facing police currently, and what they have to go through in the line of duty.

Generally speaking, none of us want to see a copper—the last thing we want to see are blue and red flashing lights coming behind us or hear a siren, not quite knowing whether it is for you or something else, or getting pulled into a breathalyser station. That happens, and that is part of their job. Generally speaking, you do not want to see them, but of course when you do, sometimes it is unfortunate, such as due to an accident.

Just recently in my electorate, there have been two fatal accidents over on the island. Of course, the police are the people who have to go and do the hard yards at the accident scene, and also have to inform families and do all those terrible things that go along with the road carnage that seems to take place. Further to that, they do an amazing job. I am a great defender of SAPOL, and I acknowledge the hard work that goes on by the police in my electorate and across South Australia. They face increasing threats, from radical bikie gangs and from criminals.

One of the things that really concerns me is the physical threats that the police are now under from the illegal drug industry and what they have to deal with when these drugs cut loose. I recall here a couple of years ago that there was an incident in the Middleton area where the police were called and a male and a female officer attended. Someone was out of control on a drug rampage and domestic issue. The person who was committing the crime grabbed hold of the young policewoman and drove her face into the mud and it was all the two of them could do to control this person. It got dealt with, but they do come under some hideous pressures and the work that they have to do now to find the drug dealers and the criminal minds behind drug distribution is important and difficult work and needs to be done sometimes in a manner which others are not aware of.

I was very pleased recently that there were some major drug busts on the south coast and Victor Harbor. It was the result of a six-month operation. The police worked very hard to do this and they got a few people and they will go through and pay the penalty. I guess the other side of this is that I have taken a close interest in the prison system of South Australia and had that role for some time and I have visited a number of prisons. The sad part is to go into the prisons and see inmates who have been convicted on drug charges and after a time, hopefully most of the time, they don't get access to drugs while they are in prison and they come clean, so to speak. They get out there and quite often reoffend. The police then have to go through the merry-go-round once again.

It is a difficult job. I think we are very lucky in this state to have a police force that is beyond reproach and very rarely do you hear anything detrimental in relation to SAPOL or officers' activities. Over the years there have been a couple of cases that have arisen out of police who have gone haywire, so to speak, and have paid the penalty. They have a hard job to undertake. I think the work of the Blue Light Disco, in particular, is fantastic. They do a great job. They are very popular in my electorate and the efforts put in by SAPOL officers both on duty and off duty in the community in the Blue Light Disco is to be commended.

They have many other roles. Many of us in here would have had the opportunity to hear the Police Band or witness the Police greys in action in South Australia. It gave me a great deal of pleasure to go to the opening of the new Police Academy some time ago as a member of the Public Works Committee and see what has transpired down there. We should and do take pride in SAPOL in South Australia and we should and do take pride in the police forces across Australia, including the federal police.

As a regular visitor to Adelaide Airport I see the federal police officers in operation quite often and they have a different role to undertake. In fact, I have a great mate who will remain nameless who is a senior federal police officer and he has come up through the ranks and occupies a particularly high position now. He travels to all sorts of places. You see the STAR force officers protecting people in important roles all the time. They remain obscure.

The various roles of police across the broader scale of things is something to note and you are never quite sure when they are around the place, but they are always there. They are there to keep us safe. They take great pleasure in keeping us safe. I think they are frustrated by the inability to give someone a clip over the ear from time to time which they used to do and probably need to do again. They remain frustrated by paper work and by their inability to pull people into gear pretty quickly. I acknowledge the enormous efforts of the police and I pay tribute once again to my late great great uncle Foot Constable William Hyde.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:09): I rise to support the motion by the member for Stuart that this house notes that 29 September 2013 is National Police Remembrance Day, that we pay tribute to the 61 members of the South Australian police force who have paid the ultimate sacrifice whilst performing their duties as police officers, and acknowledge the dangers facing the men and women who serve in our police force to provide us with a safer and more secure community.

With regard to local policing in regional areas, as a member who represents a regional area, the local police are very much a part of the community. That was demonstrated with some local forums recently. There was one in Murray Bridge where the local police had a forum and went through some of the issues that were being dealt with in the local community, and there were questions raised by the community. That interaction was well regarded and well received.

There was another forum held down the South Coast in the Goolwa end of my electorate and there was some concern about perceived crime rates. What we do know is that crime is not fussy about where it takes place. Some people might think they live in better places than others, but crime can happen anywhere. Certainly there was the perception that there were quite a few different activities of an illegal nature going on. There was a massive interest in the community for that forum. About 200 people attended and there were about eight or nine police in attendance from the Hills/Fleurieu section. They gave a very good overview and put up the statistics of what the real story was, and it was not as bad as what people thought.

It is interesting to note that it is not just the uniformed or local police who are out and about. You can have the breathalyser unit in the community or you can have the unmarked cars in the community and people do not even know they are there quietly policing our state. I think that interaction with the community is to be highly regarded, especially in country communities where the back-up can sometimes be many kilometres away if there are situations. In my electorate there are a lot of areas for police to cover. There is the Mallee region around Pinnaroo and Lameroo and, at the other end of the electorate, there are two police stations at Goolwa. That can either be backed up through Victor Harbor, Mount Barker or Strathalbyn. If there is a significant incident anywhere in that vicinity, back-up police have to come a significant distance.

In relation to community policing, I am talking about how police interact with the community. I must say that some local police do it better than others because they realise they have to live in the community. In recent times, I know the local police officer at Lameroo would go into the hotel, have a look at the people in the bar and say, 'Give me your car keys now and I'll take you home at closing time and, if you don't comply, well, you will get a visit as you leave.' Generally, they complied and they were delivered home, which I think is a great service. Instead of just laying down the heavy hand of the law, which could happen, she made sure that people do get home safely.

There are people who have long-held positions in regional police stations. The local police officer at Coonalpyn (Stan) has been there for many years. When you listen to the truck drivers on the CB radio, it is not, 'Look out for the cops, they're out in Coonalpyn,' it is, 'Stan is on the road.' This is a true story: the interstate drivers know who the local police officer is in Coonalpyn. They will be on the CB and they will say, 'Stan is out,' or, 'Stan is not out,' or, 'Stan's car is out but Stan is not in it,' and stuff like this. It is interesting that that takes place. From what I understand, Stan is like most police officers, he is very fair-minded and does the right thing, but if he gets a bit of heat over the airwaves, or someone does the wrong thing in his policing area, he will enforce the appropriate action.

Talking about appropriate action, generally in policing—and we have seen it in recent times, where one police officer was shot and one was assaulted—when police knock on a door, and it could be as a result of a call about a domestic dispute or usually something of that nature, they are not sure what they are going to face. If all of a sudden through a screen door a gun goes off, who knows what is going to happen. We have seen some horrible injuries sustained by police in recent years from things like that happening, and they do not deserve that at all. Those people who commit those criminal activities, they deserve the book to be thrown at them, quite frankly.

So, you have to commend police officers who have the guts to do those jobs—to go to the door of homeowners and sort out these domestic issues but also in relation to keeping our streets and communities safe at night, whether it be here in Adelaide or out in the community. Who knows what police officers come up against.

Sadly, we have seen over the 175 or so years of the police force operating in this state these 61 deaths of people who have just been doing their job—doing their job of keeping the community safe, police the community. They just want to go home to their loved ones like everyone else. These 61 members of the police force were protecting the community and, sadly, they did not have the opportunity to go home.

I would like to think that this honour roll will not grow but, sadly, I think it will because crime has not suddenly disappeared and some people, for some strange reason, always think that they are above the law. They will always get caught out, and they will end up facing the very dire consequences they deserve if they do attack police officers and cause them fatal injuries in their line of duty. I commend our police force for all the work they do, but I also want to pay a special commendation to the 61 police officers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:18): I support this motion. I think that members have extended it out beyond acknowledging the sacrifice of the 61 members, and I think that is appropriate, too. As the member for Hammond just pointed out, if a police officer knocks on a door, they do not know what the reaction will be. Likewise, if they pull someone over in a car, they do not know whether someone is going to be pleasant or do something harmful to them. So, it is a job that has its unpredictable aspects and, of course, it obviously applies to those who are in the frontline more so than those who are in an office block.

We are focusing on the sacrifice of police, but I think that it is important that, in all professions where people are serving the community that we acknowledge the loss of life. No doubt, if you look at the history of the MFS or CFS, there has been loss of life of members. I am not so sure about the SES, whether they have had any loss of life of members. There are a lot of organisations, I guess, which parallel SAPOL, where people risk their life to serve the community. I suppose the other most obvious one is in the military, where casualties are often quite significant. But the loss of one person is a tragedy.

I was only a youngster at the time, but I remember when police officers were burnt to death not far from where I lived, they were burnt to death at Upper Sturt in the 1950s. When you are a youngster, those sort of things have a big impact on you.

I know a lot of police currently serving as well as many who have retired. I must say I am very impressed with the young police that I have met in recent times, not to say that there is anything wrong with the older ones, but I have been really impressed with some of the young police coming through the training system now. I met a couple of young detectives at the Show, not that I had done anything wrong, but I knew the lad from wayback and I know his father very well, and he and his wife are both young detectives working out of Port Adelaide. To look at his wife, a petite person in civvies, you would not think that that was her work. I have been very impressed with the attitude and professionalism of some of the young ones I have met working out of Sturt LSA, but they still cop criticism.

I was at a Neighbourhood Watch meeting where the officer turned up in his own time, and he was going off to a private function afterwards, and he was not in police uniform and some people did not think that that was appropriate. Here is someone who is in his own time attending a Neighbourhood Watch meeting and some of the residents thought it was inappropriate that he did not have his uniform on. You cannot win sometimes. Other police that I have had dealings with over time are, just up the road, Ken Cocks, former traffic officer, straight shooter, fantastic bloke (I use that in a descriptive sense); and Senior Sergeant John Wallace who is coming to give evidence to a parliamentary committee later this week.

John was a police officer in the Aberfoyle Park area before I became the member, and for a little while after I became the member. He took it upon himself to visit families at risk and he would go and visit young people and say, 'Look, are you helping your parents? Are you going to school?' and this sort of thing. It was fantastic interactive policing. He took over Hindley Street Police Station at one stage and, rather than being heavy-handed with a lot of the street kids, he said to me, 'You don't have to get someone up against a wall and belt the daylights out of them,' and he would get hot chips and sit around with these street kids and talk to them and follow up on some of their issues.

They are just two examples and, like others, I have a lot of retired police in my electorate. I can mention their names because they are not currently serving: Don McFarlane, who was in the drug squad; and Bob Harber, who I believe was a detective; and even my friendly lawyer, Michael Wood, who is an ex-police prosecutor. There are so many in the community who have been in the police force. The sons of some mates of mine are now in the police force. I will just use their first names: Angus, a detective; and Scott, now an inspector, and they are fantastic people serving in the police force.

A couple of general points about the police—after my little road episode, the then commissioner, Mal Hyde, asked to have a talk with me, which was very kind of him. He said something to me that I think is fundamental to policing: that it comes down to the individual integrity of the police officer and whether or not they do the right thing. We have had some police over time who have not done the right thing but I think the main point is that out of currently, I think, in excess of 4,000 police, the number who do bad things is very small. We can think of some infamous characters but when you put it in the context of the number of police, it is a very small number.

The police are trying to deal with problems that they have not created but which society has allowed to emerge: problems with alcohol misuse, drug abuse (a real problem now right across the spectrum), inadequate and poor parenting and all of those sorts of issues, and the police are usually the ones who have to try and deal with them. We have a society now where a lot of people do not have any commitment to basic values.

Whether we like it or not, a lot of our values come out of the church-based tradition, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and those of us in the old school went to Sunday school and had all those values reinforced. Sadly, our society now seems to have a lot of people who do not have any respect for themselves, respect for others, or respect for property, so it is not surprising that the police are busy trying to deal with the inadequacies of what we have done collectively as a society and allowed a type of behaviour to exist that is inappropriate, sometimes antisocial and sometimes straight-out criminal.

I mentioned Senior Sergeant John Wallace. When I was a lad, the sergeant at Blackwood was Sergeant Gregory, the father of Bob Gregory who was a member of parliament and a minister. He was an old-style copper with a lot of common sense. If you did the wrong thing, he would say, 'I will give you a kick up the backside,' or something similar. Unfortunately today, I do not think police have the discretion and the opportunity to apply some of the old-fashioned approaches. I am not saying they should bash up people but dealing with an incident on the spot with a bit of good old-fashioned wisdom and advice is probably preferable to 10 pages of reports that go nowhere.

It highlights I think particularly the important role of a police officer in a country area where they are in the community and often their children go to the local school. Their approach has to be not to turn a blind eye, but they have to use a bit of common sense and reasonable judgement in making decisions. Someone was telling me once about a former police officer who was based at Mannum who is no longer in the police force. A local who was on the ferry, stationary in his car, took his seat belt off and leant down to get something off the floor, and he booked him for not having his seatbelt on.

That sort of thing does not go down too well in a country town and it highlights a point that I am trying to see our police force focus on and that is an educative role in terms of minor traffic violations rather than the punitive approach, because, at the end of the day, traffic police are the public relations face of the police force and it is their reaction and dealings with people that often sets the tone of how people feel towards the police force.

I commend this motion. I think it is important to recognise not only the sacrifice of those who have paid the ultimate price but also the serving police who face challenges every day including in some cases risking their lives to serve the community.

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (12:27): I will not speak for very long. I have spoken on these matters many times in the house and I spoke about Remembrance Day last week in a grievance to do with Koda's law, as it has become known. However, I do want to congratulate the member for Stuart for bringing this motion to the house and I want to thank all members who have spoken to it.

I know the member for Stuart is genuine when he brings motions like this to the house and I know that everyone who has spoken on it is genuine as well. Really what I want to touch on is just how impressed I am with the bipartisan nature of this house's support and this parliament's support for the hardworking people of SAPOL. We disagree about details; we disagree about, well, almost everything really, but one thing we do not disagree about is the need to keep our police officers safe. I do not think anyone here ever wants to compromise on that safety.

I want to pay tribute to all my local police; obviously, they are all hardworking. I will not name any of them but I think up in the northern area—in Elizabeth and Salisbury, certainly—they lead the way in some very important community-based policing and getting kids involved in sport and those sorts of things and trying to address the very things that the member for Fisher spoke about.

I just want to close by paying tribute to the Police Association which has a pretty enviable coverage. For those of us who are trade unionists, they have pretty enviable coverage of their workforce and for good reason. They support their hardworking police and, particularly in areas where they need to be kept safe, they are vigilant and they are always there for their members to keep them safe. I support the motion.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (12:29): I am pleased to have the opportunity also to support the member for Stuart's motion. The motion is that the house notes that 29 September is National Police Remembrance Day. It pays tribute to 61 members of the South Australian police force who have paid the ultimate sacrifice while performing their duties as police officers and acknowledges the dangers facing the men and women who serve in our police force to provide us with a safer and more secure community.

Policing is a vocation for which I have the utmost respect, as do the members of the house who have spoken today, and members who have not. Perhaps I might commend to the casual reader of Hansard the entirety of this debate because I think all of the contributions have been made in the best of spirits, have imparted useful and interesting information and I think reflect very well upon the communities of those members who have endorsed their election to this place.

South Australia Police, as some of the members have identified, have a singular reputation as a fine police force with an excellent reputation for the best possible application of the powers they have. South Australia has, by world standards, an extremely clean record for our police force. Ministers past and present, I am sure, would be very grateful for that as would the rest of the community. We have a very long reputation in that sense. I think South Australia is the first police force in the nature of its current form and has a very long history.

I want to pay tribute to the police officers whose serve my community in Morialta, as well as the rest of the community, particularly those who I know and those who are friends. In that sense, I think one of the members has already drawn special attention to the families of police officers, and what happens when a husband or wife or father or child is on shift and the family finds out that an incident has happened.

People talked about not knowing what is happening on the other side of the screen door sometimes when you attend an incident. Members may remember an incident a few years ago at Hectorville where two officers (who have written about this and spoken to the Police Journal) were shot. I think members would have read about this. It happened just down the road from my office.

These two officers were shot through the screen door of the house where they were attending an incident. We are all very grateful that those police officers are alive and with us today because far worse could have happened, but the families of police officers around South Australia did not know whether it was their loved one who might have been shot until they heard from their loved one later that day. It is a difficult thing for any family to go through, especially the families of those who have been injured.

Of course, every day families send their loved ones off to work knowing that that might happen. That is something that most of us have the fortune not to have to deal with. It is a singular sort of occupation. There are others, such as the armed forces, who have similar incidents. However, for those living and working in South Australia there are not many occupations where one goes out and faces that kind of danger and fear for your loved ones.

The member for Goyder talked about reading the articles in the Police Journal. We get a lot of magazines in this job, a lot of industry publications sent to us. I would not be surprised if the one out of the many that every member of this house probably reads every month is the Police Journal—messages from retiring members, in particular, but there are some excellent stories that give us an insight into the living work of those serving officers.

Tomorrow is National Police Remembrance Day. Today, I think all members of the house are wearing lapel pins proudly because we can do that in this house. I am wearing a tie today which I wear every year, just once a year because I did not have any personal history in the police force. I was given this Police Federation of Australia tie by Mark Burgess and Vince Kelly who, in 2008 were and still are the CEO and President of the Police Federation of Australia. In a previous life I had some cause to assist the member for Sturt, who was the shadow minister federally at the time, to assist the association in the federal parliament.

At sunset on 29 September (I am pretty sure it was 2008) we attended at the National Police Memorial which was then two years old. Tomorrow is its seventh anniversary. It is on Kings Park in Canberra on the northern shore of Lake Burley Griffin, near Aspen Island and the National Carillon. It is not the best known landmark in Canberra—it is a city of landmarks—but can I encourage all members, if you have the opportunity to visit our nation's capital, to visit the National Police Memorial.

It has an honour roll of the names of all of our fallen police officers and messages from their families. It is not a large monument, but it is very significant, and at sunset especially when all of the names are lit, it is an extraordinary sight, and I encourage all members to take the opportunity to visit when they next have a reason to visit the national capital. I commend the member for Stuart for bringing this motion to the house, and like all members, I look forward to supporting it.

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (12:35): I wanted to speak on this matter to raise something that has just been well-covered by the member for Morialta. While we recognise the service given by police men and women every day and also particularly pay tribute to the members of the police who have given their lives in our protection, there was some passing reference to members of the family, but the member for Morialta explored that matter in greater depth.

I am the sister of a serving police officer, so everything the member for Morialta said about how you feel when you hear something on the radio about a police officer being involved in an incident rang very true for me. I am always waiting to see how old they were; that is the first indication of whether your loved one is safe or not safe. It is something that people do every day, and there are unfortunately strange people in our community who you cannot tell are going to be a risk when you answer that door.

The issue of domestic violence has been one that has been so very difficult for police. I commend the way that police have changed their attitudes to domestic violence in recent years so that now police are seen as real helps and friends in the face of domestic violence. I know that in our local service area the police were really anticipating the introduction of the intervention orders, as they felt that now they would be able to do something sensible when they were faced with situations of domestic violence.

'Sensible' is a word that I find myself frequently using in relation to our police. In dealing with different situations that come up in the electorate office that require some involvement by the police, I am always so pleased that they are so sensible. They understand that there is a complex community that we both seek to serve, and that some people need extra reassurance and extra support. My recent experience is that the local police have really gone out of their way to make the community feel safe and to understand that some people find it very difficult to feel safe, and that extra trips down the street, etc. at certain times can do a lot for the community.

I particularly want to put on record my thanks to our local superintendent, Superintendent Graeme Adcock. We have an excellent working relationship, and the interactions between our offices mean that things are done easily and in a straightforward manner, and many members of our community feel better served as a result of the cooperation and support from Superintendent Adcock and his team.

Mr SIBBONS (Mitchell) (12:38): I would also like to speak on the member for Stuart's motion that notes that 29 September 2013 is National Police Remembrance Day. It pays tribute to the 61 members of the South Australian Police Force who have paid the ultimate sacrifice while performing their duties as police officers and acknowledges the dangers facing the men and women who serve in our police force to provide us with a safer and more secure community. They are fitting words in that motion. I would also like to thank the member for Stuart for his historical research. It was very well done.

As I have said in this place before, I have a huge respect for the work that police do in South Australia protecting our community. They do more than just protect; they also educate our community in many ways, and some of those ways go unnoticed. I have to say that there are many things that we as members of parliament witness, and I would like to thank them for those occasions when they are out there educating our younger people about right and wrong and so on.

Police are also in a very dangerous environment on many occasions. There are many dangers that they face. It is a thankless job, most of the time. Generally, the public dislikes police until they need them, which is very unfortunate. The member for Morialta just spoke on the Police Journal. I must say that the Police Journal does the rounds in the Sibbons household. Everybody gets a good chance to read about what is going on in the Police Journal.

Just briefly, as a parent of a serving police officer, when you expect him to be home at a certain time and he is not home, you certainly tend to get a little nervous—it is one of those things that you do as a parent—but I have great faith in the training that the police department has instilled in my son. I know that his training will keep him in good stead. I would like to pay tribute to the hardworking members of SAPOL in keeping our community safe. I would also like to thank all members today for their contribution. I commend this motion to the house.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (12:42): I would like to thank all members who have very genuinely and wholeheartedly supported this motion, not the least of whom, of course, is the police minister himself, so thank you for that. I would also like to acknowledge, for those people who made comment about the informed research I was able to share with the house, that I was fortunate enough to be able to get that from the PASA (Police Association of South Australia) website. It is only fitting that I acknowledge their contribution in that area, among others.

I was particularly taken with the minister's comments about community. I know that he thought that stuff through and meant that very genuinely. He was thinking quite sincerely about that and it is something I have thought about as well. There is this division of community and I think that, whenever community, government, police and various agencies feel that they are confronting organised crime, then, by definition, there is a division because there is an organisation on the other side that is working against you. So, I think that was a very important thing to point out.

Certainly, for me, police officers are very much a part of community. There is no doubt that they are deeply part of the warp and weft of our community, particularly in country areas, and I think that is very important. This is not to say that police are perfect, it is not to say that every single officer in every single place is perfect or doing their job just right, but it is true of the overwhelming majority.

We would all know serving and retired officers. I know the member for Mitchell's son has just recently graduated from the academy and is now a serving police officer. Every single one of us, just from our friendships, would know officers very well, and I am sure that we would hold them in high regard.

I think particularly of very close friends of mine from Port Augusta whose daughter—a girl I have known since she was, I reckon, seven or eight—is now a serving police officer. I think often about their family, as an example of the families all over the place who not only face death, as has happened 61 times in our state's history but, as the member for Morialta and the member for Reynell and others commented, face the stress every single time.

Every time a police officer whom you happen to love for one reason or another goes to work, you also know that the risk of injury, or perhaps worse, is there. I think of the most notable examples of serious injury, constables Tung Tran and Nathan Mulholland, to whom the member for Morialta referred in relation to that Hectorville incident.

Both constables have, thankfully, recovered extremely well and have both gone back to work, no doubt not without scars of various forms, but let us hope they are stronger for the experience and are better, more capable officers. Nobody would wish any officers to go through that sort of trauma, but let us hope that they have been advantaged in some way by that, and that that they take experience for the most of their careers that most officers do not have to endure.

The minister did also talk about the increase in assaults. That is an alarming trend that we are seeing, that all members of this house, I am sure, would join together on in trying to reduce. It does not happen here in parliament, it does not happen in laws; it happens on the street and it happens in the community, and that is where we need to work on this issue.

Unlike the member for Goyder, as a small boy I did want to be a police officer, but I did also want to be a racing car driver, and I did also want to be a fireman, and I did also want to be an astronaut. I never, ever imagined, as a small boy or a young man, that I would be the shadow minister for Police, and it is a responsibility on behalf of the opposition and the people of South Australia that I relish; it is an important job, as of course is that of the Minister for Police—an exceptionally important job.

As I said, our police force is not perfect, but it is the best in the nation, and it is revered and renowned around the world. When our exceptionally professional and exceptionally good-hearted officers go to work, they unfortunately face risks. I honour those 61 police officers in South Australia who have paid the ultimate price; I hope and pray that it is a very, very long time until any other officer has to do the same, and I encourage all members of parliament to participate in a ceremony tomorrow.

Motion carried.

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