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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-09-25 Daily Xml
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Motions

National Police Remembrance Day

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (11:30): It is my privilege to move:

That this house acknowledges that Sunday 29 September is National Police Remembrance Day and pays particular tribute to the 61 South Australian officers who have given their lives in the service of our community.

I want to make some particular remarks in relation to one of those officers, Senior Constable David Barr, who, at the age of just 31, died in the course of active duty on 26 July 1990. Before I do so, I want to acknowledge the Minister for Police, the Hon. Corey Wingard, who is doing tremendous work in this area, in my observation, and would have been pleased to participate in this debate. I understand he is unable to do so for the reason that he is presently attending a South Australian police community constable graduation at the Police Academy.

National Police Remembrance Day was first held on 29 September 1989, arising out of the previous year's Australasian and South West Pacific Commissioners Conference. It holds great significance throughout the Asia Pacific as a day of solemn tribute throughout Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands. National Police Remembrance Day is a time for police officers, police staff and the broader community to honour the dedicated men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the community.

This is also a day for police officers to remember colleagues who have lost their lives through other circumstances. On this day, I am sure that police and the community will also be thinking of our international police, who face terrible dangers arising from terrorists and terrorism incidents across the world. Locally, I am sure members of South Australia Police will be thinking of those 61 South Australian police officers who have tragically lost their lives while in the line of duty.

I am advised that in the lead-up to National Police Remembrance Day the Police Federation of Australia holds Police Week, a time for the community to engage with police and give thanks for their service. Police Week includes two events of particular note: the National Police Bravery Awards and the Wall to Wall Ride for Remembrance. The National Police Bravery Awards were held for the first time in 2018, and this year two South Australians, Brevet Sergeant Bill Fettes and Senior Constable First Class Paul Finnie, were nominated for their acts of courage while off duty.

While on holiday in New Zealand, Sergeant Fettes came across a car accident where oil had spilled onto the roadway and the vehicle and the road itself were on fire. Sergeant Fettes approached the car to find a woman trapped between the airbag and the driver's seat. Sergeant Fettes freed the woman, dragging her from the vehicle moments before the car was completely engulfed in flames.

While off duty, Senior Constable Finnie noticed a house fire and, with other passers-by, realised that urgent action was needed to save the occupant's life from the rapidly encroaching fire. With other willing volunteers, Senior Constable Finnie created a human chain to search within the house for the occupant. While they had to withdraw due to intense heat and smoke, the MFS soon arrived and proceeded to rescue the victim.

I take this opportunity at this time to thank and acknowledge Sergeant Fettes and Senior Constable Finnie for their courageous efforts while off duty. From the time that I have been in this place—I am sure that I can speak with confidence for the Minister for Police in this regard as well—there comes a realisation that this attitude of always putting others first is widespread throughout SAPOL.

Another event held as part of Police Week is the Wall to Wall Ride for Remembrance. From all across Australia, police officers and their families, friends and supporters ride their motorcycles to Canberra for a memorial service at the National Police Memorial. The minister was able to see off the South Australian contingent when it left Adelaide Oval this year on its journey, and it is a tradition that I very much hope will continue as part of the remembrance of this special time.

I said at the outset that I would like to refer in particular to Senior Constable David Barr. In this context, I make particular reference to his colleague all those long years ago, Senior Constable Mick Klose. Senior Constable Mick Klose has continued to honour and recognise the memory of Senior Constable David Barr and to ensure that the great tragedy of his passing too young is remembered.

There is a special personal connection for me in relation to Senior Constable David Barr because, following Senior Constable Barr's passing in the line of duty in 1990, a memorial medal was struck in his honour. I was honoured to receive that medal in 1993, a reminder to me in the years since that the day-to-day work of those who take up duties as part of South Australia Police might include many of the routine aspects of work that we all take for granted but also, in a very real way, involve the risk of these most disastrous of outcomes.

My memory at the time that I was presented with the memorial medal by Senior Constable David Barr's widow in 1993 was that he was an adult of seniority and seemed to have been considerably down the track. At this stage, as I reflect on that nearly 30 years later with the realisation that Senior Constable Barr was just 31 years old when he lost his life in the line of duty, I am reminded as well that the risks that are faced by police are very much faced by young men and women in the prime of their life, and they are truly to be honoured and recognised for the risks they take on behalf of all of us in the community.

I am proud to move this motion and I sincerely trust that this coming Sunday members of this place will take their own steps to recognise this important occasion. I commend the motion.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (11:40): I rise to support the motion. I thank the member for Heysen for bringing it to the house and, as always, for his thoughtful and interesting contribution. I have made many contributions of this sort to this house. I think perhaps this is the ninth time I have spoken on such a motion in this house, so I will make my comments today necessarily brief. I will not delay the house, as I am sure there are others who wish to speak and there are other important motions to debate.

It is important for us at least once a year to reflect on the dangers that our police officers and other emergency workers face by choice. Every day, they go out and take risks to protect the rest of us. I am not talking about the very highly trained members of the STAR Group, particularly, or other groups. I am talking about, in the vast majority of cases, those ordinary patrol officers who go out every day. They are men and women who do not know what they are going to face. They get to work every day, put on their uniform and, literally, anything could happen.

It is worth remembering that danger, as well as those police officers who have died over the years and, thankfully, by world standards, it is not many. We live in a very safe community. As well as remembering those who have died, it is worth remembering the dangers faced by those who are injured, those who deliberately and of their own free will take these risks in order to keep the rest of us safe.

That is why throughout this year we have debated measures to keep police officers safe. While I will not go over the politics of it again, I am glad that we have arrived at a point where I think police officers are now being afforded better protection by the courts, or should be. We can expect that they will be afforded better protection by the courts and, hopefully, that will serve to deter people from deliberately injuring police officers and also other emergency workers.

The next steps, of course, if you talk to the Police Association and the Police Federation, are to address the significant mental health stressors of police work. As well as the physical danger they face every day, police officers carry with them an enormous amount of mental stress from the sights they see, the situations they deal with and the sometimes difficult people they have to encounter. It is no exaggeration to say that post-traumatic stress disorder and like conditions are under-recognised in our police and it is good to see that they are coming to the fore.

I want to acknowledge the work of Mark Carroll, who, as well as being the President of the Police Association here, is also the President of the national Police Federation. The federation commissioned a very good film, made by South Australian filmmakers, called Dark Blue. I saw the premiere of the movie—the Hon. Frank Pangallo from another place was also there—and I have been lucky enough to see it a couple of times since. The film spoke about the dangers of mental health injuries particularly and the ongoing dangers that police officers face from undiagnosed, untreated and unrecognised mental health injuries.

Obviously, it is difficult for police officers to talk about. Traditionally, there have been cultural barriers to police officers talking to each other and to their families about the stressors they face. In that past, it has been the type of culture that does not really discuss these things in the open. Thankfully, that is changing, and the association here and the federation nationally, and other associations nationally, are really recognising that these things need to be confronted head on. So I urge all members to seek out this movie Dark Blue. It is on the web and you can find it on the Police Federation website.

I know that the Hon. Frank Pangallo is doing some work in this area, and I plan to talk to him more over the coming months about what we can do to address this in a legislative way. I also know that people like Mark Carroll and the association here are doing things industrially in terms of these mental health injuries, and I want to give them all the help I can.

I will not say anything more about this motion. As I said, I hope it causes members to reflect not only on the deaths of police officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the rest of the community but also on the ongoing sacrifices that police officers make who go to work every day not knowing what they will confront but doing it in order to keep the rest of us safe. I commend the motion to the house.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (11:45): It is my pleasure to stand to speak on behalf of the people of Stuart in support of this motion by the member for Heysen, and I appreciate the words of the shadow minister on this. This is a day I have spoken about many times, most often when I used to be the shadow minister for police, and I want to acknowledge the member for Elizabeth as a former police officer himself. While he found that work was not right for him from a lifelong, ongoing career perspective, he has certainly remained focused with regard to what we can do in this place for police officers.

One of the things we in this parliament can do for police officers right now is support the Minister for Police, the member for Gibson, who is doing an outstanding job in that area. He is a truly focused, genuine and hardworking minister doing everything he possibly can to support police as an organisation, SAPOL, support individual officers and, of course, support the public of South Australia who are the beneficiaries of the work police officers do.

I am ashamed to say that I do not remember all the 61, I think, officers who have lost their lives in the course of their duty, as I was quite familiar with that list a few years ago. However, it should not be forgotten that, while different from a serving military man or woman going into a conflict zone, police officers still have their lives at risk. I often think about how hard it must be mentally to leave your house in the morning for a day's work or in the afternoon for a night's work knowing that it might be a fairly routine, mundane day at work or it might be incredibly confronting or it might be incredibly dangerous.

Most of us can plan what is ahead in the day, but police officers have no idea. It is possible that any day they go to work they might be confronted with a situation in which their life is genuinely at risk. Then you add to that exactly the same issue understood by their husbands or wives or partners, children or parents thinking, 'Let's hope not, but today might be the day that my son or daughter,' or husband or wife or whoever it is, 'faces a genuinely life-threatening situation'. I thank police from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of the people of Stuart for the work they put in.

I am blessed in my electorate office to have a former serving police officer of 37 years' standing—who is, by the way, a truly outstanding electorate officer. She has been with us for just over a year, but she is extremely well known around our electorate for her work as a police officer. In fact, around 12 or 15 years ago she was the South Australian Police Officer of the Year. Michele Smith still contributes to our community in many, many ways. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the memorial service in Port Augusta on Monday, but I could think of absolutely no-one better than former police officer Michele Smith to represent me at that event, as she will do.

A few months ago, I was very grateful to be invited by the Port Augusta Police Station to come to watch, with serving officers from the district, the movie Dark Blue. There was a premiere, as I understand it, in Adelaide, Port Augusta and Mount Gambier. (I apologise if it happened anywhere else that I am not aware of.) The movie was shown for the first time, simultaneously, in those three places. It was outstanding of police officer Russell Morgan to invite me along, as local MP and friend, to see that movie. It was especially touching to be invited to see it at the same time as serving police officers and their families who were seeing it for the first time.

It had an impact on me and it had an impact on those officers I know. Most likely, thousands of the approximately 4,500 serving police officers we have in South Australia have seen that movie since. In a very helpful way, it does describe the type of mental health pressure police officers and their families can be placed under. It really was a tremendous initiative. I acknowledge Mark Carroll, the president of both the South Australian and the federal police associations, for being one of the key people who made that happen.

In our electorate of Stuart, we have a wide range of communities. Some are very, very small and remote communities, the largest being Port Augusta. It is fair to say that people in these different communities view policing in different ways. If you are in a very small remote town, or even just a small country town, your police officer becomes a friend and a member of the community, as well as the person who is enforcing the law, and it is exactly the same for his or her family. They are almost always incredibly valuable members of the community and are made very welcome. They contribute in many ways, just like everybody else in the community does.

At the other end of the spectrum, population wise, in Port Augusta police officers are valued incredibly highly as well, but they have a different type of work to do. Policing in a regional centre, such as Port Augusta, is different work from what it would be in a small place like Oodnadatta or Maree or Booleroo, for example. So it is tremendous that throughout their careers so many officers are able to move from place to place.

I have known officers, and have had good friends who have been officers, who, over 20 and 30 years, have worked in various parts of metropolitan Adelaide and in various parts of regional South Australia. I think that has been outstanding for their careers and for their families, but it has also been outstanding for their communities, who have had the benefit of police officers with a different range of experience coming into the different communities.

I know that Commissioner Grant Stevens has a real focus on diversity at the moment. He is a person who has worked incredibly hard as a deputy commissioner, and now as the commissioner, to increase the diversity of SAPOL across the state. As I said before, there are about 4,500—I think it might be about 4,700—sworn police officers in South Australia. He has a real focus on ensuring that there are more and more women in the force and more and more men and women from diverse ethnic backgrounds—and, in fact, from a broader age range as well.

I remember going to the Police Academy for a graduation. There was a 50-year-old man who had just graduated from the academy, so presumably he had been accepted when he was 49, and about to go out to the work world officially as one of the lowest ranking officers around. I am sure that with the experience that comes with being 50 years old, that person would move through the ranks very quickly. Policing these days is not about the traditional, young or middle-aged white male dealing with crime.

The world has moved on, and there are so many high-tech, intuitive, digitally-based ways of fighting crime these days. It is not just about people on foot or in patrol vehicles. It is a whole new world these days, compared to what it was 20, 30, 40 years ago, and a whole new SAPOL enforcing laws, doing everything they can to prevent crimes from happening, but when they do, to do everything they can to apprehend the perpetrators. I honour SAPOL-serving active officers and I support this motion wholeheartedly.

Ms LUETHEN (King) (11:55): I would like to rise in support of the motion by the member for Heysen and thank him for bringing this important motion to the house. I would like to take the time to acknowledge that Sunday 29 September, as well as being my birthday, is National Police Remembrance Day. Sunday 29 September 2019 will be the 30th anniversary of National Police Remembrance Day, commemorating Australia's police officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. I would also like to pay my respects to the 61 South Australian officers who have given their lives in service to our community. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and the hearts of people living in King for your service and sacrifice.

Many of the local police serving King actually live in King. They are King residents, and they have been an amazing support both giving me feedback on many community matters and working on projects broader than their roles in the community as well as serving the community. Locally in King, we have the Golden Grove Police Station on The Golden Way, the Salisbury Police Station in Mary Street and the Elizabeth Police Station in Frobisher Road in Elizabeth.

I would like to thank the Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, minister Wingard, for joining me in our local community recently for a visit to a variety of our police stations and emergency services groups. Part of this visit included the Golden Grove Police Station and the Elizabeth Police Station to meet with the Officer in Charge of the Northern Policing District Model, Guy Buckley. Guy took us on a tour of the facilities and provided us with an understanding of how operations work in the police stations and what the police officers face on a daily basis in their line of duty.

I was really impressed with what I saw, by the people we met, and I was amazed at the work that police do to keep our community the safest it possibly can be. Thank you once again from the bottom of my heart to our local police officers who go to work each day to serve us and keep us safe. I will be forever grateful for the work our police force do to serve our community to the very best of their ability. Without you our community would not have the peace of mind it has today.

The recent visits gave me a very different perspective on what a day in the life of a police officer looks like. I was surprised and disturbed to see a wall of bats, knives, guns and other sorts of instruments which have been confiscated from people living in our local community. I am regularly inspired by the work that police do in the community beyond simply being one of the first points of call in an emergency. For example, the police play an active role in our local Golden Grove, Wynn Vale and Greenwith Neighbourhood Watch group. The Golden Grove, Wynn Vale and Greenwith Neighbourhood Watch group, which I have been part of for a very long time now, regularly meet at the Dame Roma Mitchell Centre and the Golden Grove High School on Adey Place in Golden Grove.

Councillor Sandy Keane from the City of Tea Tree Gully does an outstanding job as chairperson of this group. These meetings provide a great platform for the community to come together and work on ideas to improve the safety of our local area. The police officers who attend our meetings do a great job of listening to the community's feedback and taking it all on board and working with us on projects in our local community.

For example, we have currently been working on implementing a free mobile library in our community. The police officers who attend are excellent community role models and do a great job in engaging with the group to come up with solutions together to address these issues. I have also been to a similar group in Hillbank, proactively started up by some Hillbank residents. On top of this, I have been amazed at the efforts of police officers who attend our meetings and who bring forward issues that we are usually not aware of, ask for our feedback and respond accordingly.

Keeping our community safe and providing better services is one of the top priorities of our Marshall Liberal government. The Marshall Liberal government believes that protecting our police and emergency service workers and providing them with a safe environment to work in is essential. This is why recently we passed tough new laws through state parliament to protect our police and emergency service workers. A few examples of how the Marshall Liberal government is protecting our police and emergency service workers and providing them with extra resources include:

the strongest penalties in South Australia's history for assaults on police and emergency service workers;

a new offence for spitting or throwing other bodily materials on to our police and emergency services workers;

a new South Australia Police rapid response section, which provides an enhanced operational capability to support both first responders and STAR operations to better manage violent incidents; and

a fixated threat assessment team to work with SA Police to mitigate the threat of mass casualty terrorism by providing advice and accompanying police when assessing potential extremists.

The 2019-20 state budget provides more than $3 million over the next four years to build the elite fixated threat assessment team, which is expected to include SA Health specialists, including mental health workers, a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a data analyst. An enhanced financial and cybercrime investigation branch has also been launched to combat the rising threat in our community. The branch, which includes the major fraud investigation section, has been renamed the Serious and Organised Financial Crime Investigation Section and boosted by 13 staff, taking the total people working in the section to 90.

In November last year, a potentially life-saving new state government-funded mobile phone app linking at-risk women directly to police and domestic violence services with the touch of a button was also launched. Along with this, the SA Domestic Violence Crisis Line was also moved to be staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by specialist domestic violence counsellors. When a duress alarm is raised, police officers are immediately dispatched. The state government paid $150,000 to an Adelaide-based company to develop this app, which is now monitored 24/7 and directly connects users to police and domestic violence support services.

My King electorate officer and I have been very grateful for the support of local SA police officers and the assistance of the head of the northern police district model, Guy Buckley, when my local community have raised any issues of concern. Those in my office have been very grateful for the professionalism of local SA police officers and Guy Buckley in handling a variety of concerns in our community. Some examples of where assistance has been provided to our community by local SA police officers and Guy include:

a case and concern of identity theft;

hoon driving in Golden Grove;

dirt bike riders in Hillbank and Salisbury East;

mental health matters;

intervention order matters and breaches;

damaged letterboxes in Salisbury Park;

neighbourhood disputes;

loss of a licence and reinstatement; and

stalking.

These are just some recent examples where local police officers and Guy Buckley have provided us with excellent assistance on behalf of the King community. National Police Remembrance Day, on Sunday 29 September, provides all of us in our local community and right across the state with an opportunity to pay tribute to the 61 South Australian officers who gave their lives in service to our community. On National Police Remembrance Day this Sunday, I will spend some time to reflect and thank those who gave the ultimate sacrifice with their lives in the line of duty. I will also be spending some time to thank local SA Police officers for the work that they do on a daily basis to serve and protect our community.

I will also be using the time to pray that our local police officers and their families are looked after and kept safe. Our local police officers deserve our respect for what they do to serve our community and what they are faced with every day. Again, I thank the member for Heysen for bringing this important motion to our attention, and I fully support and endorse this motion.

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE (Chaffey—Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development) (12:05): I, too, rise to support this motion put forward by the good member for Heysen to recognise National Police Remembrance Day on 29 September and acknowledge the dedicated roles of South Australia Police and the Australian Federal Police in our communities.

National Police Remembrance Day is held in remembrance of those officers who lost their lives or were seriously injured while on duty and to express sadness and gratitude to the families of those officers. A motion such as this gives us the opportunity to reflect on their service and their sacrifice. By doing so, we also honour those who continue to dutifully put themselves in harm's way every day to give us the life that we enjoy.

By way of background, the National Police Remembrance Day is an opportunity to recognise the dangers of the policing profession, reflect on the sacrifices made by dedicated officers and focus on the challenges that lie ahead. The day was first held in 1989 and is seen as one of the most important days on the police calendar. Right across South Australia, and in my electorate of Chaffey, the police and the community will join to honour the men and women whose lives were lost while performing their duties as police officers. I would also like to acknowledge my appreciation for the important work that police officers do in the community, particularly in the Riverland and Mallee. I hold them in exceptionally high regard.

On Friday, I will attend the local National Police Remembrance Memorial Service held on the banks of the River Murray at the front of Banrock Station. I have attended this event in previous years. The location is of significance to both the Murray Mallee local service area and South Australia, as it is where the first two police officers, Mounted Constable Carter and Lance Corporal Wickham, were killed while serving as policemen in South Australia in 1847.

Mounted Constable Carter and Lance Corporal Wickham drowned after tumbling out of a bark canoe while trying to cross the River Murray. Conflicts had arisen between Aborigines and colonists over the movement of sheep and cattle, and Wickham and Carter were ordered to travel to Overland Corner and respond to the disturbances. Despite the risk, the officers attempted to cross the river near the station of Mr J.H. Wigley, where sadly the canoe capsized and the two officers drowned.

This important day reminds us that we must never underrate the important role that the police play in our communities and the real risk those officers take to protect the community. Sadly, 61 dedicated South Australian police officers have lost their lives in the performance of their duty since 1838, when South Australia Police was formed. Mercifully, we have not seen the death of a South Australian officer on duty since 2002. It is also important to remember the families, friends and loved ones left behind. These officers were doing nothing more than their job and they paid the ultimate price.

While we are speaking about the important role of the police in our communities, we need to thank them for their important work across South Australia. We know that police are always there to stand in harm's way to protect those innocent people. It is also a reflection on what the police force means to regional and country communities, as more often than not members are a part of a sporting team and part of a community. They are there as great custodians who not only serve the community but also are part of the community.

I want to pay tribute to all the police officers and the senior management in the Riverland and in the Mallee with whom I have a very good working relationship, which is ongoing. We have an open dialogue policy, which gives me the opportunity to knock on a door, make a phone call and have them accessible at any point in time. It is a vitally important relationship I have as the local member with the police who travel our roads so often and keep us protected.

I commend the motion to the house. It is a very important day on the police calendar. It is a very important day to commemorate the great work that our police officers do to keep us safe.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (12:10): I rise to make a few brief comments on National Police Remembrance Day, of course being commemorated on 29 September each year. I would like to give thanks to every current and former serving South Australian police officer in what is often a very tough role. Police in regional areas often work alone in difficult situations, and I believe that we need to do everything we can to support our police and keep their workplaces as safe as possible. They also make strong connections into local communities, and I believe that one of the best things we can do is to raise community understanding and forge connections with our local police.

I would like to make mention of Superintendent Phil Hoff and Sergeant Andrew Stott, Manager of the Crime Prevention Section, and all the men and women who work within the Limestone Coast Local Service Area. It takes a considerable skill set to be a regional police officer. Often you go into a community you are unfamiliar with and it takes time to integrate and to learn the ways of the locals while still performing your job as an officer.

Many solo police officers become multiskilled: both keepers of the peace and community leaders. Sergeant Stott has done a lot of work recently on recognising the contribution that local Aboriginal trackers played in South Australia's policing history. Since 1838, SA Police have worked with 64 Aboriginal trackers across all the regions of South Australia. Long before forensics and DNA technology came into play, Indigenous Australians with their ability to read the land were called in to help police. They were able to see things virtually invisible to their police colleagues, following a trail because of foliage or grass near the scene of the crime because of how it might have been broken in a particular way.

At this year's Foundation Day, SA Police honoured the wider work of Aboriginal trackers and police aids, who were later renamed community constables. There are two Limestone Coast trackers I would like to mention, Alf Ryan and Lanky Kana. Alf Ryan was a tracker from Port Augusta who came to the Mount Gambier Police Station in 1919. He was known for his tremendous ability to solve a case quickly and efficiently. In 1928, he was responsible for tracking down two prison inmates who escaped from Adelaide's Yatala Labour Prison—they actually escaped twice—and were found in Mount Gambier. He was also called in for one of the state's biggest and most intensive searches for a missing child, a little girl called Elaine Long, at Bordertown. Four days after she went missing, Alf headed a team of trackers to locate her through eight miles of bushland and return her to her family.

For many years, Indigenous trackers faced plenty of discrimination in their day-to-day work. Although they often did the same work as regular police officers, they were not officially sworn in, so they did not have the same authority. Although they were often responsible for solving crimes, they were rarely given recognition in newspaper reports and were referred to as 'trackers', not even by their own names. Trackers were also paid less than regular police officers, at around £25 per year in the early 1900s.

As was the custom at the time, Indigenous people were buried in unmarked gravesites. Tracker Ryan died in 1966 and was buried in an unmarked gravesite in the Penola South Cemetery. In recent years, there has been a push to recognise the services of the state's Indigenous trackers by the South Australia Police Historical Society. In 2004, on Police Foundation Day, a plaque commemorating his service was unveiled at his gravesite at the Penola Cemetery, with relatives travelling from Port Augusta to witness the ceremony.

Lanky Kana was a Boandik man who was a legend in the region for his skills at tracking. He would be brought in to help locate stolen cattle and missing criminals and to uncover clues missed by police. He also looked after the police horses and used to walk them to a well at Beachport to water them. When Lanky died in 1904, he was buried at the back of the Beachport Cemetery in the so-called 'disadvantaged section' right away from the other graves, as was the custom at the time.

Thanks to the work of Robyn Campbell from the South East Aboriginal Focus Group, who has family ties to Lanky, the grave has been restored and a memorial garden put in place. This year, the final resting place of Lanky was officially recognised with a plaque placed at his grave at the Beachport Cemetery by SAPOL as part of their NAIDOC Week. Sergeant Andy Stott was there to see the plaque unveiled, as was the Commissioner of Police, Grant Stevens.

The arrival of police dogs in the 1970s ended the official role of many Indigenous trackers, although they were still called in for major cases. It was only five years ago, in 2014, that Australia's last police tracker retired from service, ending a 200-year-old tradition. I commend the incredible service of Alf and Lanky today as I commend every former and currently serving South Australian police officer.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (12:16): In closing the debate, I thank and recognise members who have spoken in support of the motion: the members for Elizabeth, Stuart, King, Chaffey and Mount Gambier. I thank you all for your contributions on this motion. In closing the debate, I reflect upon again and make particular mention of those within my local community in the Hills who are serving with South Australia Police.

I count among my closest friends a number of people, both retired, mid career and early in their career, who have chosen to dedicate their life's work to a community contribution within SAPOL. There are a number of these individuals who are very close to me, and I wish to emphasise that I hold them in the highest regard. I do not single them out by name, in part for the reason that the work that they do is often necessarily behind the scenes, but I do emphasise that they are just like so many of us with families at home. They are members of the community in every regular respect, except with that very important special exception that they, in a very real way when they go out to work, put their lives on the line in the service of our community. With those words, I close debate and commend the motion to the house.

Motion carried.

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