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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-02-26 Daily Xml
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Question Time

POLICE RESOURCES

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:25): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Police a question about police cuts.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: During the last sitting week I asked a range of questions on the Productivity Commission's report—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT:Order!

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: —which, as I am sure all members will recall, showed that the number of sworn officers in the South Australia Police had fallen by some 20 over the past 12 months. During the past week or so the minister was on radio making some claims that 'what...the opposition failed to do yesterday was to look at some of the non-operational sworn officers. Now, there's 127 of those...[and] they include people doing forensics, crime prevention work and prosecutions, all important that we have sworn officers doing those.'

I would like to draw members' attention to two press releases issued by the minister. One dated 5 September 2006 reads, in part, 'Mr Holloway says by 2010 South Australia will have more than 4,400 officers on the beat.' In the press release issued on 5 December 2007—a matter of only three months ago—the minister said, 'By 2010 South Australia will have more than 4,400 police officers on the beat.'

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Yes, on the beat, that is, actually out there policing in their communities; not sitting behind desks doing jobs, but actually out on the beat. Last week, and as reported in the media on Thursday 21 February 2008, the office of South Australian Police Commissioner Mal Hyde advised that a project overviewing ways to make budgetary adjustments was being undertaken within SAPOL. Then, on Friday 22 February, The Advertiser reported that the adjustments SAPOL was considering 'could amount to a cut of $10 million.' My questions are:

1. Is the minister aware of what adjustments SAPOL is considering to achieve a $10 million cut?

2. Given the minister's response on radio last week, how many sworn officers will SAPOL need by 2010 to achieve 4,400 on the beat?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Police, Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning) (14:27): The shadow minister for police never gives up, does he? He gets it wrong all the time, but he never gives up. The shadow minister for police is obviously forgetting the lead-up to the last election when this government promised that there would be a net increase in the number of police by 400 over the term of the government.

I would have thought that the honourable member's party actually matched that promise during the election campaign, but it also said that it would cut 4,000 out of the Public Service—which, of course, excluded sworn police officers but did not exclude all the public servants who support police. Inevitably, there is only one consequence of that policy. If we had had the misfortune of the opposition being elected the only possible consequence would have been more police officers behind desks, because that important work needs to be done.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: I will address that at length. What I am doing is addressing the gross misinformation given in the preamble to the question. There are a number of police officers, for example, who do work in forensics. Now, I do not know what the Hon. David Ridgway believes those sworn police officers, or those in crime prevention programs, are doing. They may not technically be regarded as operational, which generally relates to carrying firearms, but police officers going around schools trying to work with kids to deal with issues—whether it is driving or other issues—presumably do not need to go armed, and I do not think anyone would suggest that those police officers are not doing worthwhile work for this state. This is similar to police prosecutors. Is the honourable member saying that we should not have any police officers prosecuting people?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Members opposite can go through all the press releases they like, but this government made it quite clear before the election that it would increase the number of sworn police officers in this state by 400 over the course of this government, with a net increase of 100 each year.

The Leader of the Opposition has been playing with the figures. He appears on the Leon Byner program nearly every second day and tries to create all these statistics, and I suppose he will be invited now to appear on the Nicky and Alexander Downer program. He will probably get a gig on that every day and will be heard on all these programs using these statistics, but the reality is that on any given day—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Wortley and the Hon. Mr Ridgway will come to order.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: The statistics vary from day to day. We have over 160 (I think it is) police cadets at Fort Largs who are due to graduate over the course of the coming months—in fact, I think there is a graduation ceremony tomorrow—and every time we have a graduation ceremony that means we have another 20 or 30 police officers available. We have within the police academy a large number of cadets who have come from the UK and, as the police officers graduate, the numbers will go up.

Of course, at the same time, we do have attrition (in an average year, something like 150 to 160 police officers will retire, but it does vary from year to year), so we need to recruit about 250 or 260 police officers to achieve the target of 100. Of course, the honourable member can always use statistics on any given day where it will fluctuate up and down, but I am advised that we are well on target to achieving that objective.

The honourable member also asked a question about the budget. As he does every year, the Police Commissioner, being a very prudent financial manager, is going through his budget. As is the case with all government agencies and their CEs, they will be going through the budget process, putting forward a case for new projects. In order to gain approval for new projects, they will have to show that they have been looking at areas where they can improve efficiency within government. However, given the fact that police officers are looking at areas where there might be efficiencies and are achieving their targets, that does not mean that the police budget will be cut. In fact, exactly the same thing happened last year. I think the Hon. David Ridgway asked me a very similar question 12 months ago.

Consequently, the police budget went to record levels and increased by well in excess of CPI, and I have no doubt that, when the budget is brought down this year, the police budget will be significantly increased on what it was last year. But, within that budget, the police, like every other government agency, have to do their bit to try to constrain cost pressures going forward, and they have to do an assessment. My advice is that the Police Commissioner's project charter is to identify and critically assess initiatives to meet budget targets, efficiencies and cost pressures going forward from the 2008-09 to 2010-11 financial year.

Now that is prudence, and that is why this government has had the AAA rating restored and we have had a budget surplus every year. However, within that, we have also been able to deliver significant improvements to the police force. We have new aeroplanes, new police stations and a dramatic increase in the number of police officers.

We have also delivered—and this will have to be paid for—a significant increase, which we negotiated successfully under enterprise bargaining with the Police Association. That will give improved benefits to police officers and help us address the issue of getting police officers into stations that are hard to staff, which is something members opposite have been asking us to do. That has to be paid for, and we do need budget prudence to find additional resources. However, I can assure the honourable member that we will not be cutting the police budget.

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