Franks Stephen: Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Franks Stephen: Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20299] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party on the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill. This bill changes the name of the Police Complaints Authority and sticks the word “Independent” in on the assumption presumably that someone thinks Sir Rodney Gallen and others who have been involved did not see with enough independence. I think it is amazing that when I listen to the speeches in this House on something that goes to the heart of the integrity of the police and confidence of the public in the police force I hear what are effectively a set of smoothing smug complacent speeches idly suggesting that there are some improvements we might deign to vote for. 
This bill is the result of an inquiry in the year 2000. The Law and Order Committee reported it in 2003. We have a police force whose reputation has been bombing. We know from the polls that the police are now regarded by the public—[ 
Interruption 
] We know that the polls are telling us that a police force that was regarded as being clearly the best in the world is now seriously under question by the public and we have a Government that has trashed it. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Ha! 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Mr Goff can scoff but he knows that his Prime Minister started her rule by tossing racist jibes at the police when Steven Wallace was shot in Waitara. She jumped immediately to the conclusion that it was a racist event made it public and the police were already on the back foot. In fact from then on in Waitara they were not even able to uphold the law. This Government then tried to redeem itself by suggesting that the police needed a new level of inspectorate and so Mr Goff was sent to ride to the rescue with a relabelled Police Complaints Authority. 
Well trashing the police reputation I think comes naturally to this Government. A uniformed disciplined force takes its cue for integrity and ethics from the leadership—a leadership culture of a Prime Minister who repeatedly lies in Parliament a Prime Minister who cannot tell the truth about a painting she signed a Prime Minister who is a fraud and a Prime Minister who has lied again today. 
Jill Pettis 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I do not need the point of order. I will ask the member to withdraw and apologise please. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I withdraw and apologise. I trust that the Speaker would understand that there was a certain element of giving as good as is got. I am not qualifying my apology. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I accept what you say. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The fact is that any disciplined effective uniformed force that works under force does form a strong culture and does take its lead from the ethics shown by its leaders—by those who give it commands. 
We have seen in a very clear instance that this Government does not trust the institutions that surround the police. The Police Complaints Authority was not involved when the rape complaints began to be investigated. Instead the Government leapt in and appointed two very worthy and proper people to be an independent inquiry—the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct—in a panic reaction and we did not see anything of the Police Complaints Authority in all of that. The Government did not choose to accelerate the progress of this bill to buttress the institution that it says it now sees as so important. Instead it got two good judges the Hon Justice Bruce Robertson and Dame Margaret Bazley who agreed to come in and essentially tell us whether the police— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: The member is terribly confused if he thinks that Margaret Bazley is a judge. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I did not say that. She is acting as a judge in this matter. Margaret Bazley is eminently qualified to exercise the powers of a commission of inquiry in this. 
But what do we find? The fact this bill has been brought back to the House in such a rush after sitting around since 2003 is I think to try to hide the Government’s embarrassment that Justice Robertson has decided he does not want to have anything more to do with this shonky process. Justice Robertson has said he has better things to do—and undoubtedly he has—than to stay around in a commission of inquiry that is supposed to be a whitewash of a Government that has trashed the police reputation. It has trashed it consciously. It has trashed it to get out of political difficulty. When that inquiry started and it was obvious to everyone that it was going to need criminal proceedings why did the Prime Minister leap in and appoint a commission over the top then have it sit there after spending a million dollars being utterly ineffectual? No wonder Justice Robertson said he had better things to do than be associated with such an ad hoc useless process. 
I am sure it is only a strong sense of loyalty to the public service that she has served so well for so long and fear that it is being destroyed by the Government that keeps Dame Margaret Bazley there. I am sure she will not be part of a cover-up but she is certainly being used as part of a cover-up by the Government for its lack of ability to run manage appoint support and look after a police force that can maintain public confidence. 
The police force cannot maintain public confidence because it does not have confidence in its own leaders. It does not have confidence in its relationship with the Government. It knows that the statutory independence of the Commissioner of Police has been compromised. What about the timing of the announcement of the so-called “porn-gate”? Who told the commissioner to announce that a week before he even knew how many porn pictures he had? Dr Michael Cullen the Attorney-General who is supposed to be the chief law officer of the Crown and uphold the institutions of law and order told the Commissioner of Police when to announce a porn inquiry. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Just an apologist. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Order Mr Goff. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I challenge the Minister to take one of the calls left to the Labour Party and explain the role of Dr Michael Cullen in the premature release of the “porn-gate” fiasco. There are 330 people under suspicion because he forced the commissioner who did not have the spine to stand up to such a vindictive Government to come out a week earlier and announce an inquiry. We find now that there might be eight pieces of porn. What a way to treat a police force—forcing it through the humiliation of last week because Dr Cullen did not want an announcement coming out when the Prime Minister was about to return home! And the Prime Minister said: “Yes get them to do it.” And what do we see? Eight pieces of porn possibly in a police force of 6000— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Eight pieces of objectionable material. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Eight pieces of illegal material. So here we have an Attorney-General who does not know that his role is to uphold the mana of the law. He does not understand that if he and his Government so quickly stab the police in the back if they are so protective of their own political careers that they do not care what that does to the police force then it will be no wonder that the police force leaks information. The police force will be whistle-blowers on this Government and all appeals to loyalty that this Government tries to make will fall on deaf ears. The police will have a higher loyalty—a loyalty to truth a loyalty to someone who is loyal to them. 
Debate interrupted.