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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-02-13 Daily Xml
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Question Time

POLICE, INDIGENOUS EMPLOYEES

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:37): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Police a question about indigenous police numbers.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Under the former Liberal Government the number of indigenous full-time equivalent staff between 1997 and 2002 increased from 45 to 63, an increase of some 40 per cent during that period. The Rann Labor government's embarrassing record reveals a decrease of almost 10 per cent since it came to government in 2002. The Productivity Commission report, which the minister was so proud to talk about yesterday, indicates a drop in indigenous full-time equivalents over the time of this government. Will the minister explain why the government has not achieved its strategic benchmark of 2 per cent of indigenous staff within SAPOL and what strategies it is putting in place to fix this recruiting problem?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Police, Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning) (14:39): It was this government that restored a police presence to the APY lands. We have a number of Aboriginal police officers now working in the lands—not as many as we would like, but that is not because of lack of trying on behalf of the South Australian Police Commissioner nor this government to recruit such community constables. The reason simply is that it is a very difficult position for many people on those lands to undertake that work within their communities with the pressure on those individuals, and it is always a difficult task to recruit community constables. I have had some discussions with the Commissioner about how that might be improved.

One of the suggestions has been made that perhaps we need a different category, as the community constables recruited are subject to the same sort of restrictions as are other members of South Australia Police. In particular, one must not have any criminal convictions and the like, and for many people who live on the lands and undertake important community tasks this may be an inhibition. I have spoken with the Commissioner and I understand that he is currently considering—and it will have to be negotiated with the Police Association—other categories to ensure that more indigenous police are recruited to our police force.

Can I just say by way of analogy that, to fill the numbers of police, this state already has recruited actively in the United Kingdom. After the current recruitment, almost 400 officers of the 4,200 officers in South Australia Police will have been recruited in the UK. But, obviously, in relation to numbers of indigenous officers to fill our targets we do not have options such as that available to us. We have had a lot of trouble recruiting police officers. The fact that we have had some difficulty filling those positions is why we have had to go to the United Kingdom to recruit, but obviously within indigenous communities it is difficult, and it is no good pretending otherwise. Clearly, we will have to do it differently from the way it was done in the past. Of course, even if we could recruit—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Well, as I said, prior to that there was no police presence at all within the APY lands, but that is another story. Let us not go back into the—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Yes, but there were none in the particular communities. To be effective, community constables obviously have to have some knowledge of the communities and the lands, and the difficulty is recruiting those community constables in the areas for which they will be responsible. Obviously, with other areas of employment it is not easy, and it does not help anyone to pretend there is some magical solution.

As I said, it is a matter that the Commissioner, the Police Association and I am well aware of, but we will have to look at some quite radical solutions if we are to solve this problem. It is not just a matter of going around putting up recruiting signs and asking people whether they will join, and we are not going to force people to join, either. So, clearly, it is a matter of making this job more attractive and more acceptable to police officers. But, given some of the cultural issues involved, that is not easy, and let us not pretend it is.

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