Ivan Dean, Speeches Index

Tuesday 13 November 2007

DEPARTMENT OF POLICE AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ANNUAL REPORT

Mr DEAN ( Windermere - Motion) - Mr President, I move -

That the Annual Report of the Department of Police and Emergency Management 2006-2007 be considered and noted.

The member for Rumney is not here so I can refer to the speech I have written and I can read it verbatim without fear of any interjection or anything else. She really has changed the way I have started to think about Parliament and my briefings and so on, and in fact I should not be attending too many of them because it will be seen as my admitting I have not done any research on any of the topics that I am going to discuss in this Chamber.

Mr Parkinson - So you think she should take a rest somewhere near 5 degrees south?

Mr DEAN - Oh dear. The comment was made in the lower House by the Leader, the shadow minister in relation to the police, that the police annual report is a nice glossy report, looks very good, but it is what is inside that really matters. It looks good, it does, it presents very well, nice pictures, a nice glossy document. I made the comment last year that these reports need to be open. They need to be fair, and people writing them or the secretaries of departments should not be too sensitive to criticism of their organisation in some of the reports.

It is a well written report. One would expect that to be the case. But where there are some negatives in it, those negatives in many instances are turned around to read in a positive sort of way without fully identifying the situation that has caused it to be a negative. It has twisted it around into a positive, and I will refer to a couple of those points as I go through. The secretary's foreword sets the scene in a very positive way. It is pretty positive stuff when you read through his foreword. However, is it all positive? I do not think it is all positive. There are some issues in here that need looking at and considering and that is what I propose to do. I do not propose to touch on everything through this report, I certainly intend to bring out, Mr Deputy President, a number of areas that I believe are worthy of discussion in this Chamber.

We start off in the report with the statement of crime being at its lowest for 10 years with the number of offences having been reduced by another 10 per cent. We are continually getting that drop all the time and that is good, but I just wonder how low we can go and how we can keep going down. I wonder why we can keep moving down as well, the reasons for it. I do not think the real reason is just because crime is not being committed to the same degree that it was the previous year. I do not think that is the case at all. If you look at the document you will see that fraud is down 47 per cent on page 6.

We know very well with fraud you only have to have one case of fraud committed that involves 50 to 100 offences in that one case, and that can make the difference. That can make the difference of 47 per cent, just one crime which has a number of crimes then committed within that major offence. I think there is a need to understand that. My contention is that the measurement of crime or any other event is not significant unless the way of reporting crime has remained consistent throughout time. In this case the information I have been given would suggest that that is not the case. I want to give an example. Previously where police officers attended a report of a crime they would report every offence that was committed when they attended that crime scene. I give this example. Supposing a report were made of a burglar stealing from a home where forced entry was made, a door was smashed or a window broken, damage occurred inside the house, fluid spilt on the floor perhaps, an assault occurred, a breach of a restraint order may also be involved and resisting arrest may also have occurred. In previous times police would have reported that offence in the following manner or a similar way. They would have reported it as a burglary, a stealing, a damage to property by two in that situation perhaps. They would have reported it as an assault, a stealing, possibly a trespass to lands and they would have reported it as a breach of restraint order and also resist arrest so in that one act you would have had a number of crimes and offences being reported.

Now what happens is it would probably be reported as one offence only, probably aggravated burglary. That would cover the whole thing, so it would be one crime as against previously seven or eight crimes. So it makes a big difference as to how reporting occurs. Just as an example of that I refer to a report that came into my possession where a police officer attended a reported crime where there was a multiplicity of offences occurring within that one act, not dissimilar to the ones I have just referred to. The police officer furnished the offence report and identified in that offence report about eight different individual offences having been committed. The report went through his superior officer to another senior officer who then referred it back to the police officer, indicating that he ought not to have disclosed in that report all of those individual offences and that it should have been recorded as one offence only. He then made the comment that the additional offences could have been made to the file when it was submitted at another time. I am not quite sure what is meant by that, whether at another time those offences would be recorded in the system and/or not, I do not know.

I am just saying there needs to be consistency with the way the report is recorded. It is all very well to say that crime is reducing but, unless it is done in a similar way as previously, when you relate it back to what happened previously it really does not mean a lot.

Ms Forrest - You have to compare apples with apples.

Mr DEAN - You have to compare apples with apples, absolutely.

There is so much emphasis today within the Police department placed on reported offences, clean-ups and statistics as a way of measuring performance. It is, in my opinion and the opinion of a lot of police officers, reasonably distracting in the way in which they carry out their duties. There is pressure placed on them, Mr Deputy President, to ensure that all of the statistical data is recorded, collected and reported. Their service is measured on the performance that they return in statistical data and so they have to be very careful to ensure that everything is properly recorded and that, to me, is distracting. A lot of police officers will tell you that if you talk to them. They will say that it is distracting, we want to get out there and we want to do our job, the job that the public wants us to do.

We all want to see good transparent policing. We do not want figures-controlled and driven policing. We are fortunate we have a very good police service. I have said that many times and I will say that for a long time. We have a good service, but I believe that they are being hampered by this pressure at all times to produce quantity rather than quality.

Much crime is still not reported and I think that is very clear, too, Mr Deputy President. If you talk to people out there they will tell you that crime is being committed around them that they do not bother reporting, and the reason that they give for that is, in many instances, 'The police have enough other things to worry about without the crime committed on me'. That is very evident. It is happening on many occasions. I do not think that is the way we should be doing this. I think we should be wanting people to report crime so that we can keep proper records, identify the hot spots, and then police according to where crime and offences are occurring.

I do not like that. I can give the recent example of six crimes which were committed against me - each one to a value of about $80 to $90-odd. I took exactly the same course of action a lot of people are taking. I said to myself and the other people who knew about it, it is not really worth reporting, the police have enough to worry about without worrying about these small crimes.

Mr Parkinson - Are you talking about minor damage to property?

Mr DEAN - Stealing and damage to property, both. To me it is not quite the way to go and I think we need to try to get on top of that.

If you read the comments by the Commissioner of Police on fatal and serious accidents and read no further you would probably rightly believe that fatalities in this State are continuing to drop. However, we know that is not correct and that fatalities over the last 10 years in this State have continued to go up. They have not dropped. I am talking about fatalities, I am not talking about serious accidents and injuries.

As I have said previously, with Tasmania's population of about 498 000 people, it being a relatively small area and I would have thought a reasonably easy area to police, which it is, I would have thought we would have set the benchmarks for road fatalities per head of population, but we are not doing that. I have, in fact, a number of questions I will be asking in this Chamber, probably tomorrow, in relation to fatalities and where we are going on that front. Why can we not decrease the number of fatalities?

If you look at the last 10-year period, that is about when the quota system commenced, the benchmarking process commenced. One of things it was designed to do was to decrease fatalities. It was certainly designed to decrease serious injury accidents which it has done, as I understand it, and if you look at these statistics that has occurred. Unfortunately we have not been able to bring the fatalities down over that 10-year period.

There has certainly been a huge decrease if you look at the number of fatalities over the last 10 years compared with 20 or 25 years ago, when I think we had 140 or 150 fatalities in a year. That is what this State experienced at one stage and that has now dropped off. It is heartening that it has dropped back to a bit over 50 and thereabouts. There have been some big changes.

Mr Parkinson - How do you stop people from speeding?

Mr DEAN - You are right. I think that that is one thing we have to concentrate on and there are a number of strategies out there now. There is a strategy that has been trialled in Sandy Bay, I think, with the reduction of speed limits on some of the roads, the gravel roads and some other areas. It will be interesting to see what comes from that strategy. Very clearly speed has a lot to do with it, there is no doubt about that.

Mr Parkinson - We will be dealing with a bill very soon too that will make it harder for drink-drivers, that is the automatic disqualification one.

Mr DEAN - I was going to refer to that in a moment but I refer to it now. We will deal with that bill this week perhaps, I am not sure. It increases penalties and gives the police the authority in relation to drunken driving and people affected by alcohol in certain circumstances. I think that will make it much better for the police in that regard and that that may have some impact on the number of fatalities and number of serious accidents as well. Very clearly alcohol is related to some of those deaths on our roads and is certainly related to some of the serious accidents in the State.

The other comment is that if you look at Tasmania, I suppose we are in a good position to set the benchmarks for the rest of the States in relation to just about every aspect of policing. If you consider our population, the fact that we have no common borders and there are a lot of other things that I suggest that would allow us to police in a better way than perhaps some of our mainland States that are much larger geographically and have greater populations and so on. We ought to be able to set the benchmarks in just about every area, I would suggest.

Mr Parkinson - Did you see that on page 24 the Tasmania Together process is mentioned as relevant to the benchmarking?

Mr DEAN - I have gone through the report pretty closely, almost all the way through and you are right, there are some good comments throughout it. If you look at the report you see that 702 362 RBTs were completed. My comment is, and I have said this before here, there is a benchmark for police to return annually a certain number of random breath tests and so police commonly set up in areas where there is a lot of traffic and not necessarily in areas that they believe, or know in some instances, people affected by alcohol are using.

When the minister, Mr Llewellyn, was talking about the bill that will be coming into this House probably tomorrow or the next day, he made the comment when talking about that initially that, 'We know that people do not always use the main arterial roads when they have been drinking. We know that they are using some other areas and some other routes to get home'. We know that, police know that as well. But police have difficulty in setting up in those areas for RBTs because they do not get the numbers that they are required to get. They have to have a certain return of RBTs every year.

Mr DEPUTY PRESIDENT - I was thinking about taking different routes home and I think that you have referred to that once before, haven't you?

Mr DEAN - I saw you smiling and I knew exactly what you were thinking about. I was going to steer clear of that and not go down that track.

I want to look at page 59 and look at the number of RBTs. I had a bit of difficulty in understanding this but hopefully I have it right. If you look at the number of random breath tests done this year and the number exceeding the prescribed limit there has once again been an increase in those figures. These figures refer to people caught exceeding the limit of 0.05 at RBT sites, specific sites set up for recording of RBTs. These figures have gone up every year since 2002-03, and 2005-06 has seen the largest increase over that five-year period of about 300-odd. In 2002-03, it was 3 783 and this year 4 426 people have been charged at RBT sites. That is a lot of people when you think about it, particularly with the publicity that is given to drink driving, and to the setting up of RBT sites. Police do not really hide that, yet you still have these people prepared to run the gauntlet, as it were.

Mr Parkinson - It is amazing, isn't it?

Mr DEAN - You cannot quite understand it.

Mr Parkinson - You cannot understand some people.

Mr DEAN - I cannot quite understand it. On the other side of that page you have a column dealing with total drink-driving charges and again if you look at the year 2002-03, 5 086; this year, 2006-07, that figure has gone up to 5 900. I am not quite sure whether that is a figure that stands alone for people who have been breathalysed away from RBT sites or whether that also includes the RBT sites. The way that I read it, it stands alone and if that is the case then the numbers are quite staggering. If you add the 5 900 onto the 4 426 you have about 10 500. Is that right? Is that the way it is to be read? I am not quite sure.

Mrs Smith - I disagree.

Mr DEAN - You are disagreeing. You are probably right, I do not know. I am not quite sure. Looking again at fatalities again on page 11: are they saying here that fatalities have dropped this reporting year compared with the last five-year average? Yes, they are saying that and it is right. The average over the last five years to the end of October has been 40 deaths and this year it is 41 deaths. This is where we all become concerned with figures. I suspect that five years has been used in this instance because it shows a decrease of one death whereas over the last 10-year period - and I think that would be a much improved one, a much better statistic to use because that is when the quota system, the benchmark system, commenced - you will see that there has been an increase in road deaths over that period of time, up to and including this year, up until October of this year. We are talking about up until October only because that is all we have reached thus far in this calendar year.

I just take an opportunity to mention the road trauma support team. I was able to attend a function that was arranged by the road trauma support team at Launceston on Saturday where people gather to look at and pay respects to the families who have lost somebody in fatal road accidents. It is a really moving experience. I was privileged to be able to speak at that activity on Saturday and relate to the people there, the impact fatalities have had on my life. I was able to tell a number of true stories in relation to my background regarding fatalities. I might also add that there were a number of people there at that function who came forward to speak very briefly in relation to their position regarding fatalities as well.

It was heartening to see the responses of people and how they reacted to what was being said at the time, and the impact on their lives, to listen to them and hear what they were saying about how it had affected them, a road death or a serious road accident. I felt quite able to speak at that activity because as a police officer I attended many serious road accidents, I attended many fatalities. Unfortunately I was involved in a fatality myself as a police officer driving a police vehicle. My young brother was also killed in a road accident so I felt that I had sufficient background and knowledge and understanding and had suffered sufficient trauma to be able to speak at that function.

The impact on people is just incredible. It is tremendous. I told the story of my parents and how the death of my brother in fact killed them, both at a very young age, in their early sixties. They could never live with it, could not go through with life. They just lost interest in life through the death of their youngest son. It is a very tragic situation. I always emphasise the need for policing and for this State to do whatever they can to make our roads safer. I am forever talking about policing strategies and how they can be improved and the things that police probably now ought to be doing to reduce road accidents. I often talk about signage on the roads, that there ought to be more signage on the roads, and about checking your speed limit. For instance, you will find it on the mainland now quite regularly, where you are travelling and your speed comes up on a sign. I do not think it would be too much to ask in this State for those sorts of signs to be strategically placed, for instance, on the Midland Highway and some of those other highways where we know there are a number of accidents and fatalities.

Mr Parkinson - We do do that but I suppose what you are saying is that we should do it more.

Mr DEAN - I think we do need to do more because the impact is devastating. As I said on Saturday, the person who is in the accident who is killed is killed and they are gone.

Mr Parkinson - I have seen a trailer around a few times. Haven't you seen it on the Midland Highway - the trailer that gives you your speed and the limit?

Mr DEAN - Yes, I have seen the sign there. The point I made on Saturday is that it is the people who are left behind who suffer and they have to go on living; they have to deal with what has happened. We just need to concentrate on it. I am not satisfied that we are still doing enough about it.

I commend Saturday's speakers, Graham Lunsen, Pat Igoe and Bronwyn Parry and I think Bev Ikin who is the president of that association for what they are doing to provide support to people involved in road accidents and their families.

There were 99 434 infringement notices issued, 41 791 were cautioned and these figures continually go up every year, so I just wonder how high we can push these figures each year. We know fatalities are not decreasing at this stage so what else do we need to do? As I said, there has to be a saturation point somewhere, I would have thought. If our policing messages were getting through and our publicity was working we should not be picking up so many offenders. I would have thought, if we were doing things right, those numbers would have been decreasing, but still they continue to go up.

The cautioning process, I think, is a very good process and that was brought in to recognise good driving. I commend the police for using that system because there are many drivers who get caught every now and again, not for having deliberately committed an offence but for simply overlooking perhaps the speed they should have been driving at and who have not had a conviction for something like 30 years to 40 years. That is where the caution position is available and used to satisfy those situations. I think it is a very good system.

The figure of 99 434 infringement notices means that about one in every five Tasmanians has been booked this year for a traffic infringement. That is a lot of people. I dare say some have been caught several times but it is a heck of a lot of people.

I was going to talk a bit on the benchmarks and the quotas but I think that I have probably said enough. I do not agree with the quota system. I think it is a wrong system but, unfortunately, it is with us and I think whilst we have the current people in the positions in Tasmania Police that will remain there. I cannot see too many changes occurring at this stage, so I think we have to live with that.

I want to refer very briefly to Neighbourhood Watch. It has been around in Tasmania for about 21 years and it is reported on in this annual return. I have spoken to the northern president recently who suggests that a number of neighbourhood watches in his zone are losing interest. He says that a number have indicated that unless something happens they will probably close. I wonder what the position is throughout the State as to whether -

Mr Parkinson - It depends very much on the people who are organising them. I find, just going on my own electorate as the example as I do not know what is happening elsewhere in the State, that it does depend very much on the sorts of people who are organising the group.

Mr DEAN - I think you are right. It has a lot to do with the organisers and how they run things - as to when they call their meetings and a lot of other things that go with it -

Mr Parkinson - There are some people who have a real flair for doing that sort of thing and others that haven't.

Mr DEAN - They have, you are right.

Mr Parkinson - It does rely heavily on volunteers, as well.

Mr DEAN - You are right but, as I said to this gentleman last week, rather than close the Neighbourhood Watch what they should do is look at meeting times. I know that there are set times when they are supposed to meet and so on but there is some relaxation in relation to that now and they can probably meet every two months rather than monthly to get numbers to their meetings. They can also look at joining up with another Neighbourhood Watch, having joint meetings or what have you. There are a lot of things that they can do to create some interest in those neighbourhood watches.

Mr Parkinson - From the point of view of the police, I think the police do a great job with that. They go to the meetings, they give talks, they keep people interested and everybody enjoys their presence.

Mr DEAN - It is not the police that is the problem, I think it is the people in the neighbourhood with other things to do and it is just a matter of trying to keep that interest there. There are a number considering closing in the Launceston area so I wondered what it is like in the rest of the State and whether it is struggling. If it is, what plans are there in place to try to get them going again, to move them forward because neighbourhood watches, I have no doubt, have had a big part to play in the reduction of crime. They have given a lot of people comfort over a long period of time in relation to security and other issues. I think it is something that we would like to keep going.

Mr Parkinson - I have often thought that, in some instances, they could play a larger role in road safety. They weren't set up to look at road safety, but I think there are areas where they could be watchful on that issue.

Mr DEAN - You are right and I think a lot of people in the neighbourhood watches are saying they need something new, something to give them a new direction to look at, to pursue or to be involved in. As I said, I am not quite sure what this is but I have no doubt that there are some things out there that they could now be doing that would once again get them motivated and moving in the right direction.

Crime Stoppers is referred to on page 32. Crime Stoppers is doing well and I attended a Crime Stoppers function recently at the Country Club. The turnout was extraordinary. It was well attended by many business people from throughout the north of the State. It was indicated there that Crime Stoppers is really doing a lot of good in this State. A lot of people are using Crime Stoppers, the reported numbers were up, the reported crimes that were being solved through Crime Stoppers were up. It is a real success. Recovery of property, including drugs, was quite high as well, so a lot of good is coming out of Crime Stoppers.

There is little doubt that many people report crime, antisocial behaviour and identify offenders if anonymity is guaranteed. I just want to make the point that a lot of people will not report criminal activity if they believe there is an opportunity that they will be identified themselves. Here is an opportunity, of course, where they are not identified and so they do use it, but there are other people who will not use Crime Stoppers. They will not use Crime Stoppers because they fear that they might be identified so I think there comes a time when we should start looking at other programs.

I want to refer to a local government area on the mainland which has set up on the Internet an opportunity for people to report criminal activity and antisocial behaviour. By simply logging into the local government site, they can report the activity that they have experienced or witnessed online. That is actioned by the local government which uses that to identify hot spots in and around their city area, and then they put into place the strategies that are necessary to control and police those problems.

Mr Parkinson - Hooning is an example of that, where a lot of people are quick to report the act but they will not take a rego number in case it comes back on them. They don't want to be identified.

Mr DEAN - Exactly, and that is my point. With another hat on, I am moving an agenda item in local government for the Launceston City Council to consider this because I think that there is an opportunity there for it. I have recently had a number of people come to me and say that there is a lot of antisocial stuff happening out there but they do not want to be connected to it and if there is an opportunity for them to report this some other way they would do it.

I think that we ought to be doing that. I do not know if the police have that sort of a system but perhaps they ought to consider it, if they have not. They might have it, I do not know. As I said, a lot of people do not want to formally go through Crime Stoppers either for those reasons.

The SES is referred to in this document and there is no doubt that the State Emergency Services in this State are second to none. We have a very good service doing a lot of wonderful things and I applaud them. I take this opportunity to recognise the northern manager, Clint Saarinen, who recently resigned his position in this State to move to Gippsland in Victoria and take up a senior role. He was here for, I think, seven years and he no doubt is responsible for the strong position of the State Emergency Services in the north of the State. He really set it up, got it going and he was able to extract money, from local government, where others could not. I take my hat off to Clint and take this opportunity to commend him here today. He leaves that unit in extremely good shape and the person coming in will certainly have a hard job to keep it up to what Clint was providing. Occasionally he got a bit of flack but Clint always had the interest of the SES at heart. He just wanted to make it bigger and better at all times. It was certainly a wonderful effort on his part.

I wish to refer to some specific crimes. Some members might want to talk on some of these issues. Robbery must be a concern for police, with a substantial increase from 157 in 2005-06 to 183 in 2006-07. I would think that from all of the reports that we have heard about so far, this year has not started off too well either. I should imagine if we keep going in a similar way in relation to armed hold-ups and robberies as we started this financial year the figures will not be looking too good next year. I am not quite sure what is going wrong and what is behind this increase but the annual report does not go into it. It does not give you that sort of detail.

I suppose there is only a certain amount of detail you can put in an annual report but it is helpful at times if there could be some identification of why it is believed that some of these crimes are now moving in the way that they are.

Mrs Smith - Wouldn't the courts be a better place to try to track that as they may probe more of the psychology as to why they did it when they get them into court.

Mr DEAN - You are probably right but the police have a good idea of what is going on, they gauge what is happening out there. I would imagine that probably many of these crimes are drug related, people either involved in drugs, taking drugs at the time or trying to get the money to get drugs. I suppose there are lots of -

Mrs Smith - If they go through the courts, the stats would be official. They would give details such as he did it before and he got 10 years for it.

Mr DEAN - I would have also thought it was incumbent on police to try to identify reasons and causes for some of these things. They do in some instances. As I said, between 2003 and this financial year there have been 64 additional crimes, additional armed hold-ups in a State the size of Tasmania. It does have an impact on the people and you only have to look at Launceston recently, with the bank robbery and one or two other robberies there, a lot of people are starting to fear for their safety. Whether it is real or not does not matter. The fact is that they fear for their safety.

I was going to refer to the Police Response Team, PORT, which, in my opinion, is working very well. However, there are a number of antisocial activities currently occurring in and around some of the built-up areas, in George Town in particular and in Launceston, where I guess we will probably want -

Mrs Jamieson - Get a bigger population in George Town -

Mr DEAN - George Town's population might increase shortly, might it not?

Mrs Jamieson - That's right.

Mr DEAN - We do need to consider that. I am not quite sure how they work out where they ought to be and when they ought to be there. But I would have thought it relates to the actual number of reported antisocial behaviour activities and criminal activities and I suppose they then gauge from that where they ought to be. I suppose we are also dependent upon information from local governments and businesspeople. But they need to ensure that they keep that team very active and try their utmost to stem antisocial behaviour, because in the late 1990s, Launceston was in an abysmal state as far as antisocial behaviour and criminal activity were concerned and one would never like it to go back to that. Hopefully we can get on top of all that.

Family Safe at Home: family violence reports continue to increase and I expect them to do so into the foreseeable future. I want to quote from the document on page 117:

'It is again anticipated the upward trend in the reported level of family violence will most likely continue, given the enhanced and integrated response to family violence.'

Then further down in that same section it says:

'While the incidence of family violence has increased this is not necessarily attributable to more family violence occurring but, rather, an enhanced reporting process, the community's attitude that family violence is not longer acceptable and increased confidence by the community in the police and the criminal justice system.'

I wonder how long we can rely on that for the purposes of explaining the increased numbers of family violence incidence because the Safe at Home legislation has been in place now for several years and the numbers continue to go up. They have not flattened out. So, is what I have just read there right or do we not have it right? Are we missing something else out there? Very clearly, there is a lot of family violence. There is not doubt about that and it is an abhorrent crime. It is a crime and we need to do everything that we can possibly do to prevent it and bring offenders to justice. But I am not so sure that we can continually rely on those points that I read to satisfy and explain to us the increases in family violence. We publicise it a lot. It has been publicised now for a number of years. It is on the television and it is well done. It is in papers and it is in the written press as well. It is on the radio.

Mr Parkinson - John Howard thinks it only takes place in Aboriginal communities.

Mr DEAN - You are probably right. He is fairly strong in relation to the Aboriginal communities is he not? But, in fact, it is occurring on our own back doorstep as well and we need to be more aware of it and do a lot more.

The unfortunate thing about the Safe at Home position is that there are some people who are - and I am not quite sure how to put this, but I was going to use the phrase 'reasonably innocent'. I do not think that is a good phrase to use. But I had a situation recently where a gentleman came in to see me. He had no prior convictions whatsoever, Mr Deputy President - not one prior conviction - was a hardworking man and he had had an argument with his wife. He admitted the argument with his wife and he also admitted to putting his hands on her shoulders. She left the home and went next door to make a cup of coffee, so she said, and the next thing is the police arrived and he was arrested and taken to the police station.

[5.00 p.m.]
As a person who has never been involved with police before in his life, never having committed an offence before in his life or been caught for having committed an offence before in his life, he said it was devastating to him and he wonders whether this legislation was ever meant for a situation like that. He cannot accept that it was. He does not blame the police. He said that the police were obviously doing what they are required to do and he just wonders whether this legislation was ever set up for that sort of a situation.

As he said, it could happen to any of us. The other point he made to me was that there was no evidence of any physical contact whatsoever. So no evidence other than the evidence of his wife and he kept saying, 'Was the legislation set up to satisfy that sort of a situation?' It is a very difficult one for police; I understand that.

Complaints against police: I note that there has been a continual decrease in the number of complaints made against police and that is very satisfying. I think that the police would be very satisfied with that as well because they are in a difficult position. They are dealing with violent situations on a very frequent basis and they put themselves in a position where obviously complaints could quite easily be made. To see the number of complaints dropping off is obviously a reflection on the professionalism of police today. I think it goes back to their training and how they react and how they control situations, so it is good to see that situation occurring.

I notice that 10 complaints related to off-duty police. I do not know what types of incidents they were involved in, but the Leader might have an explanation for us in relation to that. I could find no reference in the report to the sort of offences off-duty police would get themselves involved in where they have come under criticism and had complaints made against them. They are quite good figures.

The other one that I wanted to touch on, Mr Deputy President, is the anti-hooning legislation. I think the recent amendments to this legislation have been welcomed by everybody, but I am not so sure that hooning, the burnouts and all that type of activity is decreasing. I cannot be satisfied that it is. If you are in a city area or a built-up area, whatever hour of the night it is, you will hear vehicles hooning around and screeching tyres. It is very common. So I am not sure whether it has had any impact on a number of offences at all but I do not believe it has. If you look at the number of vehicles that have been confiscated - quite a number in this State - there are some who are second-time offenders and some third-time offenders. I have not read the legislation for a while but I understand their vehicles can be removed from them on the third occasion and sold, I think. I just wonder whether or not that has happened, whether the vehicles have been removed, whether they were sold or whether or not they continued to retain those vehicles. You would like to think that the legislation is being pursued to its full extent.

Mr Parkinson - I see at least one State - and I think it might be New South Wales - talking about legislating to destroy. Is it New South Wales?

Mr DEAN - In New South Wales and I will refer to that in a moment. Things like - and we probably read it in the paper - where the AFL footballer in South Australia was caught doing a burnout recently in a built-up area in Adelaide. That received quite a lot of publicity, which I do not think is reasonable. The young drivers, referred to as 'hoons' - and they are not all hoons but just young people driving vehicles - read that, they see that, this AFL footballer jumping into this vehicle and doing a burnout, and they then think why shouldn't they do it. I do not think it is in the best interests of policing and preventing this type of offence to give those offences publicity. I think it is quite irresponsible, to be quite frank.

I do not believe we are doing enough in relation to this legislation. We have had problems with rollerskaters, rollerboarding and all of those things in and around city areas so we outlawed certain areas in CBDs. Local governments have been on board with all of this and they have stopped those units being used in certain parts of built-up areas and so on. They have then built rollerskating rinks and different other areas for these people to engage in that sort of activity. They have built mountain bike jumps specifically for people with mountain bikes to get them off the steps and different other places where they have been using them and causing problems. Why should we not be doing the same for people with vehicles who want to go out and spin the tyres? Why do we not start to look at that? I know that a number of people have considered it from time to time and I believe that we ought to be doing more. It is all very well to simply continue to lock these people up or continually take their cars off them but if it is not reducing the numbers of offences then really what is the point in having it there? We have these laws in place to try to reduce the number of offences. That is what they are there for, not just to catch offenders. Our laws, in my understanding, are an attempt to have people think properly, have them think realistically and avoid doing that sort of thing because it is not accepted by the community.

Where we can see that the attempt is not working, we ought to do more about it. A lot of the kids using these vehicles in this way are not the unemployed, they are not hoons in the strict sense of the word. Some of these youths come from very good families, are in good employment and some of these people have families of their own.

Mr Parkinson - The 80-year-olds are a worry.

Mr DEAN - Yes, he certainly was a worry.

But the point I am making is that it is not just the element that a lot of people would like to think it is - that is, those who are unemployed, those who have nothing better to do, those that are simply causing problems all the time. It is not just that group of people who are involved in this activity. I believe very strongly that we should be providing an opportunity for those people to use those vehicles in that way with some control and I do not see our current methods and strategies are going to decrease the offence of hooning at all.

Mr Parkinson - Hooning legislation hasn't been going for very long, though.

Mr DEAN - It has been going now for about four or five years, just about since I have been in Parliament. It has certainly been going long enough to have had an impact on the offence of hooning. When you drive around the streets today you will see black tyre marks all over the roads. They are not decreasing, in my opinion, in any way at all.

A number of people have asked me what the position is if we see and identify somebody hooning. If they report that to the police will the police be able to act upon that information? I have said that yes, the police can, provided the evidence is certain so that the police can reasonably believe the offence has been committed and they can take action. I do not think they can take possession of a car in that situation but, as I understand it, they could take action against those people. I would think that would be the situation. Members of the public are getting fed up with this type of offence. They are wanting action and they are concerned. I experienced an incident recently. A lot of offenders know that they can get away with spin-outs because there is so much smoke you cannot get a registration number and the car just takes off. I reported a recent spin-out to police and I think action was taken, but it is still an offence that is causing some concern out there.

I asked a number of questions in this House two weeks ago and am still waiting for the answers relating to the forced transfer policy. A number of police are concerned about the transfer policy in Tasmania Police. When you have, as I mentioned in those questions, 80 to 90 police turn up at a Police Association of Tasmania meeting, then something is afoot because very seldom does that number of police turn up to a police association meeting. I will be interested in the answers to those questions and would hope to have them either this week or next before Parliament adjourns. They are not difficult questions to answer. There is a lot of concern about the current transfer policy as it relates to senior people and sergeants in particular and a number have approached me about it. We might remember that the Education department, I think it was, at once stage had a transfer system in place which I understand worked quite well but I am not quite sure whether it still operates that way. If Education department employees served in an isolated area they were given opportunities for advancement in their organisation; it was done on a points system somehow. I do not quite remember all the detail on it but I think that -

Mrs Smith - They go to more out-of-the-way places.

Mr DEAN - That is right. It depended on where they went and where they served. I am just wondering whether our police are being given a fair deal in relation to some of these situations. Police want promotion and the police service has to have people wanting promotion. I know of a number of police out there who have said that they will not take the promotion examinations while that system is in place. They do not want to take their promotion examinations in the current situation. They do not want promotion and that is a sad situation.

Mrs Smith - Are they are frightened they might be sent somewhere after that?

Mr DEAN - That is right. A lot of these people have wives, they have husbands, they have partners and a lot of them have children. It all very well for the department to simply say it is only for two years or it is only for three years but it has a huge impact on the lives of people. I understand also that the department has to fill the hard-to-fill positions. I understand that as well.

Mr Parkinson - I was going to mention that.

Mr DEAN - Certainly they have to fill them, there is no doubt about that, and the Police department is not the only organisation that is confronted with that problem. I will be interested in those answers when I eventually get them.

Another offence I wanted to refer to relates to mobile phones. If you note on page 61, the numbers rise from 3 699 offences in 2005-06 to this year 2006-07, this financial year, when we had 5 246 offences of using a mobile phone whilst vehicle was in motion. That is a huge increase. I have no doubt that is only touching the tip of the iceberg. If you drive around now you will see people on their mobile phones willy-nilly, all over the place. I followed a driver the other day in a vehicle travelling at about 30 kilometres an hour and moving all over the road -

Ms Forrest - Was he on his own?

Mr DEAN - Yes. I said to my wife, 'This person has to be drunk.' When I came closer to the vehicle, I could see that he was on a mobile phone and holding the mobile phone in his arm and trying to steer the car at the same time and -

Ms Forrest - Did you pull him up?

Mr DEAN - No, I did not.

Ms Forrest - Why not?

Mr DEAN - I am no longer a police officer.

Ms Forrest - Oh, that's right.

Mr DEAN - Another time I saw a truck driver - and this is fairly common - cradling a phone in his hand and trying to steer his truck with his elbow.

Ms Forrest - It's even scarier when you see a bus driver with a bus load of kids doing it.

Mr DEAN - I have not experienced that. The point I am making is, the police cannot be everywhere all the time and I am not blaming the police for this at all. What I am saying is that this is happening constantly. Some people obviously have no thought or consideration for other road users or the law at all and they continue to do this.

What I am saying is, Mr Deputy President, we have to try to stop this behaviour. I have no doubt that using mobile phones has been the cause of a number of accidents as well. I do not know whether there is evidence to show they have been involved in serious accidents or not, but I should imagine drivers have certainly been involved in accidents while using mobile telephones.

Mr Wilkinson - But there is still a problem with that act, isn't there, or with the section covering use of a mobile phone. Even if you have one of those little earpieces on, there was a case that came out a year ago that said that is still using a mobile phone. People are selling those little earpieces on the basis that they hands-free and therefore legal, but it was deemed by a magistrates court to be using a mobile phone. That was also the case in Victoria and yet nothing has happened. There is no legislation out there about it. There is no advertising out there about it. People are breaking the law with those things, it would seem, day in and day out.

Mr DEAN - Thank you for that information. What I am saying is, I do not believe that we have penalties that are strong enough because of what these irresponsible people can do as a result of that action. I believe that we ought to be giving them the message very clearly and very strongly that if they engage in that behaviour and get caught, then they are going to suffer through a very high penalty being imposed. I am not sure whether or not it would be a much larger fine - the current fine I think is about $300, although there has been an increase in the fine recently. But to some people it is not much and they say it is worth the risk rather than putting in a hands-free phone kit or whatever they need to do in their cars. They would prefer to run the gauntlet, as it were. I think that we need to be sending the message very clearly and strongly to these people. If they do that and get caught it is going to cost them $500 and probably a licence suspension on top of that. We need to get the message through that it is not acceptable behaviour and that we are going to make our roads much safer and very difficult to continue to do that kind of thing.

The police generally, Mr Deputy President, through the year, performed very well. There is no doubt about that. As I said, I had some concerns as to how far you can continually drop some of these figures. There has to be a saturation point at that end as well as the other way. On the increased numbers in relation to the quota system, I just wonder how high that can go. Once again, there has to be a limit there somewhere. You just cannot continually push it up all the time because the higher you push your quota systems the more time police have to spend on those activities, the less time they have to do the other work that they would like to be doing, to use their words in many instances, 'real police work', getting out amongst the people, talking with the people and being involved with the people and patrolling the roads. It makes it difficult for them. I will be interested to see where these police quotas go over the next few years. Quotas certainly do take a toll on police. You only have to talk to those at the coalface and they will tell you the impact it has on them, when they are required to get a certain number of bookings. It takes its toll and at times they do not have the time to do the other things that they want to do. I will now listen to any other speakers, Mr Deputy President, who might want to raise some issues.

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Mr President, I thank the members for their contributions and for the issues that they have raised. The point by the member for Nelson in relation to drugs is very interesting and we know very well that drugs are obtainable almost anywhere at any time and it is a huge problem. I do not know what the statistics are now but it would be interesting to see them. Going back a few years, I think drugs were probably involved in some way or another in almost 70 per cent of criminal activity at one stage, or thereabouts. Either drugs were being used by the people committing crime, they were committing crime to get the money to pay for drugs or they were committing crime to steal drugs and all the rest of it. Drugs play a big part in what is happening around us.

It is a problem for parents with young children today growing up, attending functions and parties and nightclubs and all of those things. It really has to be on their mind on a lot of occasions, I would think. The member for Nelson is absolutely -

Mr Wilkinson - Don't you think there should be an advertising program as well just to show the effects? It can ruin lives.

Mr DEAN - It just seems to me that we have become fairly complacent in relation to drugs now. If you talk to a lot of young people they see it as the norm to go out and to have a joint or a pill or whatever it is. It is just a normal thing. They do not believe that they are committing an offence. They do not. They will openly tell you that they are having their few drugs and that to me is really a terrible situation, a dilemma in fact for us because we know that normally it goes from there to much heavier drugs and finishes up causing a number of problems.

The member for Nelson is also right about the Ben Cousins case. Really, I think that case promotes it among the young people, our young sporting people. They see what has happened and where he has gone with it. He has been away and supposedly had the treatment and assistance. But he came back and really nothing has changed. I think that is not good for where we currently are.

I know police have a huge problem there and that they were targeting the bigger people involved, the sellers and the suppliers and all of those people. I can understand that as well because you need to get them out of the system but it is very difficult to do that for them. I just pose the question to conclude with this: what is the function of police? Is it to continually book and lock up people, is that really the function of police, or is it to be proactive and prevent people from committing offences, driving dangerously and drink-driving? Is that not their real function? I believe it is; I believe that that is what the real function of police is - to be proactive and to prevent people behaving in that sort of way to the best of their ability. I do not think that a good measurement of policing is the number of bookings they get. I cannot accept that. I cannot accept that that is a good measurement of policing in society today and I find it difficult to understand. It seems to me that there is this emphasis placed on having to have a certain number of bookings, having to get a certain number of persons for drink-driving, for failing to indicate or minor traffic breaches. I cannot accept that, Mr President, as being the position and the thing that police ought to be concentrating on. I believe that they ought to be concentrating on the educational side of things and preventing these offences from being committed in other ways, and I am not quite sure what they are but there are a number of things that can be done out there to do that.

I do not believe we have it right and I do not believe it is a good measurement of policing to continually get high numbers of bookings at all. In fact I think the better measurement would be if there were very few offences being committed, very few driving offences being committed and the police were responsible for curbing and controlling the number of offences that were being committed. I think that would be a good measurement of policing.

I thank members for their contributions.

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