That the annual report of the Department of Police and Emergency Management 2005-2006 be considered and noted.

These reports are quite interesting and as you read them you begin to believe that the year in review was a bed of roses. I think if you go through all the annual reports you get the general feeling that nothing has gone wrong. When you do come across something that looks like a negative it is normally covered in one sentence and in this report there are a number of good examples of that.

To name just three: there is very little on the Safe at Home strategy because the figures are increasing, and I will talk about that more in a moment. Fatalities are increasing and there is very little on fatalities. Radio communications within the police service are in a deplorable state but in the annual report these are covered in one line. There is nothing in the reports on the red-light camera debacle. I am not quite sure where that is going and whether there are strategies in place to replace these red-light cameras.

Clearly, the bureaucrats who write these reports believe it is their job to put a positive spin on everything and if that cannot be done, any possible negative needs to be brushed over in a simplistic way. Therefore it is necessary to look closely at annual reports and also draw on your own knowledge, or memory of the year's events as well as other documentation to which that annual report relates. I would be wasting members' time if I focused only on the good news, although the department is to be commended for the positives and the way in which it is progressing.

It is our function to look at an annual report, to pull it apart as best we can and to offer suggested changes to make an organisation even better. I thought it an opportune time, Mr President, to have a look at policing and particularly at our ever-increasing road toll; the death rate on our roads is not acceptable to anyone.

Last year there was an increase on the previous year and since the quota system was introduced the number of fatalities on our roads has gone up. They have not come down despite the traffic quota system, which I would have thought was introduced to tackle this problem as well as introducing, in my opinion, an easy way to measure police performance. I believe that that is a critical part of the system that is currently in place.

One would think that this State with its small population and short driving distances when compared with other States would set all the benchmarks for serious and fatal vehicle accidents but it does not. There is evidence to show that serious vehicles accidents have come down; therefore very clearly the traffic quota system, in my opinion, has failed to reduce the most serious of events and that is road deaths. It is upsetting that the honest hardworking police officer knows this but is absolutely powerless to do anything about it. Instead they are forced to move around in those areas where they will never ever, in my opinion, prevent or are highly unlikely to prevent a serious accident or death and it is simply to pick up those quotas that do nothing other than raise revenue and get people offside with police.

I will give you an example of what I see as poor policing caused through the quota system and/or a desire to raise revenue. Some of these issues are referred to in this report. I will relate this story from Boxing Day when my wife and I were driving back to Launceston from Hobart. I was travelling at about 110 kilometres an hour and several cars -

Mr Harriss - In a 60 zone?

Mr DEAN - No, no, it was in a 110 kilometre, lawful zone. Several cars passed us in the 110 kilometre zone, clearly doing in excess of 120 or 130 kilometres an hour.

Ms Forrest - That happens to me all the time.

Mr DEAN - Shortly after passing Conara Junction, cars in the opposite direction started flashing their lights at us. When that happened, my wife asked what speed I was doing and I told her that I was doing 110 kilometres an hour. I told her that obviously there were police ahead and that I knew exactly where those police would be, in the Epping Forrest 80 kilometre zone. Sure enough that is exactly where they were. It is a favourite spot, and if people do not know about it, it is right next to the hall, so be aware of it. You may ask, why there?

Well, the truth is that it is in these zones that bookings are more prolific. It is in these areas that they achieve their benchmarks. It is highly unlikely that this would stop any accidents or fatalities but as sure as anything they will get bookings and satisfy these often-quoted speeding statistics. It is a numbers game, it is not about good policing. The irony is that the drivers flashing their lights on the open road could well have prevented an accident and or saved a life. And that continued for a long period before Epping Forest and a long period thereafter.

I strongly believe that if a little bit of commonsense was applied to traffic policing, road fatalities could be decreased within this State. I reiterate that it is not the fault of the lower ranks of the police service. They are policing the way that they are forced to and that, in my opinion, is sad. A uniformed officer - and in fact I have had many approach me in recent times and they must remain nameless for obvious reasons - pleaded with me to try to force changes to the system. He said that it was pernicious to policing and demoralising and he added that if I did this I would be assured of 1 100-plus votes in my next election. I had to remind him, Mr President, that they did not all live in my area, however I think he made his point quite well.

I have recently been in discussions with police in Denver, Colorado; New York and Dayton, Ohio. I must say that, contrary to the information provided to the Commissioner of Police - and I hope that he reads this - it was not a parliamentary-supported trip or exercise. The commissioner has written to me saying that, as it was a parliamentary-supported trip, I should provide him with my full report and the information that I gained.

The Denver Police have about 1 400 police and have a responsibility for a population of 550-odd thousand people. They average around 30 to 35 deaths annually on their roads. In 2006 they had 32 road fatalities. Tasmania for the same period, 2005-06, had 53 fatalities, 21 more than Denver, with a larger population and I would suggest overall, poorer driving conditions. It was blanketed in snow at the time I was there. They put police out on roads that are accident-prone. They remove their accident-reduction zones immediately they are identified as unnecessary and see quota policing as destructive. When I asked about their accident-reduction zones and how they police them, they said, 'We don't have any'. I said, 'But you must have some?' They said, 'As soon as they are identified, we then go about erasing that by making the changes that are necessary to in fact change the road, either by fencing or the contour of the road or what have you'. They go about changing the road.

In fact, just for the information of members and I know that they will be pleased about this, the morning I flew out it was minus 18 degrees.

Ms Forrest - Do they change the road though, even when the road is not at fault, if someone is drink-driving or something like that? They would not change the road then?

Mr DEAN - No, normally an accident-reduction zone is identified by the number of serious accidents and fatalities that occur in a certain spot. Just because there is one accident in a certain part of the road does not make it an accident-reduction zone area. In fact, drink-driving is not a big issue in Denver. Police in most of the States, and certainly in Denver, must have probable cause before they can intercept motorists, as opposed to here in this State, where the police can pull anybody up at any time for any reason.

Mr Harriss - What's wrong with that?

Mr DEAN - No, I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, I am just saying that in Denver I guess they do not have the same policing opportunities to control traffic on the roads. Even in those circumstances they are much better off, that is the point I make there.

Pedestrian deaths are a concern in Denver and they are closely looking at that and trying to determine the strategies that they can use to reduce pedestrian deaths.

I could talk on policing in America at length and perhaps I will complete an interest speech and that probably might be worthwhile because there are a lot of issues that came out of my trip to America that I would like to pass on.

Mr Harriss - It would be interesting to see the Government -

Mr DEAN - I will pass them on to the police. I do not have a problem with that, Mr President, as the commissioner virtually told me to do. But I will do that because I want to help policing. That is my aim.

Mr PRESIDENT - Even if it were a parliamentary visit, I believe you would still be under no obligation to provide a report to the Police commissioner. You would report to Parliament if you wished.

Mr DEAN - I thank you for that comment, Mr President.

Mr Harriss - It is nice if he is happy to have you do his work for him though.

Mr DEAN - You are right; maybe he will make a contribution to my trip, member for Huon?

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - I doubt it.

Mr DEAN - In this report, the annual report 2005-06, the Commissioner of Police says that fatal and serious injury crashes have reduced but that there has been a small increase in fatal accidents. The fact is, Mr President, fatal accidents have increased. If one goes to page 3 of the report you will see where that has been identified.

Elsewhere in the report, decreases or improved performances are reported as positives. The word 'small' does not appear, even though in some cases improvements have been very small. In the case of fatalities which impact on the families and impact on people more than any other road situation, they are identified as a small increase. I do not think it makes any of us comfortable that fatalities have increased when other States are being successful in reducing fatalities. I am labouring this point and I do not regret it for one minute because, as I said, I am convinced that good policing, policing the way that the average officer would like to do it, would make our roads much safer. They want to get out into the areas where accidents are most likely. They want to set up random breath testing in some of these areas, but cannot because they cannot get their bookings or the randoms necessary. They cannot meet their quotas.

[11.30 a.m.]

I want to quote from page 29 of the report, Mr President:
'Road Safety research consistently highlights the need for a coordinated approach to developing and implementing strategies to achieve reductions in road trauma. The Federal Government has identified desired road safety performance targets in the National Road Safety Strategy 2001-2010, which aims to reduce the rate of road fatalities per 100 000 population by 40%, from 9.3 in 1999 to no more than 5.6 in 2010.'

I will be interested in awaiting the outcome of that just to see how those strategies might impact on fatalities in this State.

Computer closing down.

Mr PRESIDENT - Is this part of the honourable member's presentation?

Mr DEAN - It is, Mr President, and it is just adding a little bit to it. It is getting the attention of the members.

I also quote further from the following paragraph, and I just take a comment out of it:
'a number of major initiatives of this Strategy have been implemented.'

I would really like to know some of those major initiatives that have been implemented and perhaps the Leader will be able to provide me with that answer a little later on. I will just read a further comment here:
'The ... Safety Council is currently developing a State road safety strategy for the next five-year period, 2007-2011, which will be based on current research including an analysis of Tasmanian crash data by the Monash University Accident Research Centre, best practice and the views of the Tasmanian community.'

I look forward, Mr President, to learning what the views of the community are in Tasmania in relation to this matter, so I await the outcome of that.

I note under the heading Road Safety Strategy, third paragraph, that inappropriate road user behaviour is the cause of many of the fatal and serious injury vehicle crashes in Tasmania and I really do not think you need to be a Rhodes Scholar to work that out. I think that is fairly clear when you look at the accidents that have occurred around this State. We only have to look at the situation in the paper today of the driver who is currently facing charges of manslaughter or death by dangerous driving, I think it is.

The question I ask again is where these inappropriate road user behaviours occur: do they occur on the open roads, rural roads or are they occurring in Campbell Town, Perth, Epping Forest or those many other favourite spots around the State?

I notice on page 4, 89 311 speeding infringement notices were issued during the year in review. I did ask the question in this House before and I do not have those figures with me so I will just ask again how many of those have been in the 50, 60 and 80-zone areas - in other words, in the speed reductions areas. The whole of the police thing is based on a numbers game and not quality. Mention this in America, where some of the States were using it and they will tell you they stopped this method long ago for many reasons. One of them is that they are not revenue raisers. They made that point very strongly indeed. They have a very clear picture that they are not revenue raisers and that nothing they do should have that inference attached to it. They kept stressing on me that they enforce quality and not quantity. They say their position is one of wanting to decrease crime and antisocial behaviour and they have a desire to decrease the road carnage.

They work very closely with local governments; they brief local government on a fortnightly to monthly basis, depending on area. And they take on board a lot of information they get from local government as to what some of their policing strategies ought to be. They are answerable to local government. That was an important point they made to me. They said that good police work is not just about producing numerical records and showing that there had been large numbers booked. They say it is about quality policing. A strategy I would urge our stakeholders to use would be to trial no use of cameras in any of these zones over the next 12-24 months, and instead concentrate cameras and more warning signs on the open roads, urban roads, rural roads and the other current accident-reduction zone areas.

In Dayton and Denver, in America, when they do identify an accident-reduction zone or a dangerous area on a road it is fixed. For the same period you should abandon to some degree such quotas producing thousands of RBTs and some of the other moving and parking offences, and let police police. Let them do the job that the public would like them to do. Of course the public wants crime reduced. That is happening, and I commend the police for that. They want antisocial behaviour stopped. There are some concerns in the CBDs that that has not really been happening. They want serious accidents and fatalities reduced. They want speeding reduced and they want dangerous driving reduced - just to mention a few.

What the RBTs do is simply cause police to continually set up on the roads of high traffic use, rather than necessarily where the police know alcohol-affected drivers are. But it is simply a numbers game and they are forced to do it this way. On page 4 of the report you will see that there were 608 471 tests completed. What does this really do? Having completed that many tests there are certainly a number of people charged with drink driving, but I would have thought that the better course would have been to have had these police on the roads and on the streets where they believe people are driving while affected by alcohol so that they can put a stop to that type of behaviour.

The fact is they cannot get the numbers they are required to get. Let the police for the same 12-to-24-month period flash their lights at motorists or set up in the known danger zones. A great strategy in my view is to drive around flashing your lights. When I was a police officer I used to do it regularly. It works. You see somebody doing that and you immediately look at your speedometer and you ask yourself whether you are exceeding the speed limit and you take corrective action.

Ms Forrest - Do you still do it with your name on your car?

Mr DEAN - I still have my name on my car and I still do it. It is legal. There is no reason I cannot do it.

Ms Forrest - Are you sure, saying hello to the driver coming the other way?

Mr Parkinson - Do you ever drive anybody to distraction?

Mr DEAN - I do not think it does. I have probably reduced the risk of some accidents and I have probably reduced the risk of some fatalities, who knows?

Ms Forrest - I thought it was illegal.

Mr DEAN - No -

Ms FORREST - Frowned upon?

Mr DEAN - It is certainly frowned upon and I may not do it when I pass cameras, although I probably do it there as well, but I do it just generally in other areas and as I am driving.

Mr Parkinson - There's enough flashing going on without police officers doing it.
Members laughing .

Mr DEAN - I think it is a good policing strategy.

Ms Forrest - I don't think you're a police officer anymore, though.

Mr DEAN - No, and I am thankful. I gave my time and my time is up. I needed to do some other things, with some assistance, I might add.

Mr Parkinson - Is this when you were in a marked vehicle or an unmarked vehicle?

Mr DEAN - This is in the car that I drive now, an unmarked vehicle on all occasions, Mr Parkinson. If you have a marked vehicle with blue lights you do not really have to do that.

Mrs Smith - Haven't you got a marked vehicle?

Mr DEAN - I have my name on it.
It is very simple, basic policing and I have no doubt that if these methods were adopted, Mr President, the number of fatal road accidents would fall. Of course there are other things that go with that. I draw again on my visit to America: more centre fencing and side fencing would also impact positively but the State will tell us there is not the money to fund it. That is sad and I believe that all traffic fines money in this State should go towards road improvements and strategies to decrease road carnage. In one American state, that is exactly what happens; any money that is raised through road breaches is channelled back into road safety strategies.

There is no doubt that our quota system is an easy management tool. It is very easy to look at records to see what infringement notices police have put in and gauge from that the return on work undertaken, but I am not convinced it is the best method for policing. Other States and countries I am aware of do not use it. New Zealand and, as I have said, the American states I visited do not use it. They had it, but abandoned it a long time ago because it was not giving them the returns they wanted. I believe that in due course the system will change and I think that there will be a number of other strategies that will be implemented to ensure that police are doing what is necessary.

The minister and the commissioner will tell us that these strategies have improved the position of this State insofar as crime, traffic, accidents and antisocial behaviour are concerned. If that were so, Mr President, why have other States and countries that do not have this method or form of policing become safer as well? Why has there been a downturn in crime, antisocial behaviour offences, traffic accidents and fatalities in States and countries where quotas are not in force?

Mr Aird - That is why I want it to continue for everyone.

Mr DEAN - There are many reasons this is occurring. To name a few: there are now more police, improved policing methods, intelligence-led policing, improved technology, improvements in science such as DNA, targeted policing, neighbourhood watches, an improved economy, more in employment, improved social benefit schemes, and the list goes on. We would expect any area, any State, to have significant reductions in criminal activity and traffic accidents et cetera.

I raise these issues, Mr President, because I am truly concerned about policing and the good police officers we have in this State.

I refer once more to the annual report and figures in relation to complaints against police. It is pleasing to see that the number of complaints against police has dropped. I raise the question as to the accuracy of some of those figures. Are they reliable? I often ask that question. I have been told by a number of people that figures are fudged. However, I am not in a position to identify them because of likely repercussions that could occur.

Ms Thorp - Through you, Mr President - which figures were those that you thought were fudged?

Mr DEAN - I am talking about figures generally, but I am talking about the complaints figures as well which have dropped. The number of more serious complaints about police in this State has dropped. I notice also that customer service complaints are fairly high; 87 complaints have been actioned by the Internal Investigations Unit, while a further 116 customer service complaints were made against police. I could not find any reference in the report to the previous customer service complaints; it may be there and I might have missed it.

Ms Thorp - Through you again, Mr President - excuse my ignorance, but what constitutes a customer service complaint? Is that when you ring up and no-one is there?

Mr DEAN - To me, a customer service complaint is deemed to be a minor complaint against police. It could be where a person is pulled over for a traffic offence and the police officer is either seen to be aggressive or raise their voice or something of that nature, but it is on a minor scale. Where the actual line falls now, I am not absolutely positive, but there is a differentiation of the two areas. A minor issue is dealt with as a customer service complaint. It is fairly quick and it is a good process, in my view, as there is a review within 14 days or it might be a little longer. There is a time frame on the completion of those complaints. It would be interesting to know just what those 116 customer service complaints were in relation to. That could be in the report.

Ms Thorp - Through you, Mr President - that might be an issue for budget Estimates.

Mr DEAN - You are right.
The next issue I want to refer to, Mr President, is the police communications system within the area of police safety. The police communications system has been broken ever since it commenced in a new format, I think about 15 years ago. I could be wrong, but it is going back to about that time. It was known as the EDACS system and is referred to on page 57 of this report in one dot point which I quote:
'During 2005-06, significant progress was made towards:
" the strategic plan for future radio communications'.

What does that mean? As we know, police communications are in an absolute shambles, according to the Police Association and other people. Communications have been raised in a number of circles as a cause of police being placed in dangerous and precarious situations. In one case, perhaps, on the evidence that has been provided and the information that I have seen, communications contributed to an assault on police. Not only is there evidence of the system contributing to safety issues for police but it is also compromising the safety of the public. The disappointing thing is that the system that they are now working with, which started as a digital system but has now changed to analog I am advised, is relatively new and was introduced at tremendous cost. It was put in at extortionate cost but did not deliver what senior police and/or the contractors said it would.

All police working in the field report communication problems, and on a daily basis. It is demoralising for them at a time when their productivity is being continually questioned and they are being autocratically driven to achieve quantity results. Police in many incidences are by necessity now reliant on their personal mobile phones to support what they see as an inept and unreliable communications network. The personal mobile phone of police is an extremely important resource to them so perhaps the department should consider supplying and providing mobile phones to the men and women in the organisation.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police says that it takes time to create a new network. Of course it does, but with every day that passes there is the greater risk of injury to the police or to the security of police. Recently I raised this matter with the Minister for Police. I have a report and I will take a couple of quotes from that report. If you talk to many officers today about their communications they will tell you that they have difficulties or problems with it on a daily basis but that now they do not worry about or take the time to make those complaints. It has gone on and on and they are sick and tired of it, to be quite honest. That is what they will tell you. The Police department should have a state-of-the-art radio communications system, they should have the best system that is available. That is a very important part of their work. In fact as we know, without their communications it would fall apart.

I want to make a couple of quotes from a report that I received back from the minister when I asked about the police communications and what was being done and how quickly it would be done. I appealed to him for it to be moved ahead as quickly as possible for the very reasons that I have previously raised. I quote:
'The Government established a supervisory committee to oversee the development of the specifications for a Whole of Government Radio Network and to pursue attempts to resolve the litigation that had been initiated by Ericsson. I am sure that you understand that both of these processes are by their very nature, lengthy and time-consuming.'

Well, I have referred to that; of course they are. I am not convinced that it is being moved ahead as quickly as it ought to be though. No doubt this report would have been written within the Police department to the minister so it would be coming from that source. I continue to quote:
'Concurrently, the Commissioner of Police has had in place a number of policy responses to address what was seen by some as problems with the communication system.'

So it is not denied that there are serious problems within the communications system.
'There are ongoing issues brought about by weather conditions, inappropriate use of equipment by individuals, non-compliance with policy as well as occasional faults with the system.'

That is an interesting one. There are occasional breakdowns. Police who are working with it will tell you that they continually experience occasional breakdowns. So I challenge the minister in relation to the comment that there are only occasional breakdowns.

I understand that there are difficulties and problems with this. I understand, on the information that I have been provided with, that the new system did not provide what the department were advised or told it would provide. I understand that. I understand it is a contractual issue currently being sorted out between the Government and Ericsson and I understand that there could be a sizeable settlement to Ericsson in relation to this issue. I look forward to the outcome at the end of the day because this is taxpayer money that is being used in relation to these issues. I might add - and the Treasurer may well listen to this, Mr President - they are quick to pay out in some cases but not so quick to pay whistleblowers who have had to fight every millimetre of the way to get any compensation that they are entitled to.

I want to mention community safety. I want to look briefly at this part of policing because this is where the public probably have most concern - that is, Mr President, feeling safe and secure. I commend the police for putting into place the new Public Order Response Team, commonly known as PORT, who are working with existing Victim Safety Response Teams - VSRT - Youth and Community Policing Services and licensing personnel, and you will see that referred to in the annual report.

What does this really mean? Do we accept from this that all these groups of police are out there most nights and most days patrolling our streets? Unfortunately, I do not think that is quite so. If that were so we would have hoards of police all over the place and perhaps little or no antisocial behaviour in our CBDs in particular. We know that there have been a number of complaints made - and particularly I can refer to the Launceston area - of assaults and antisocial behaviour in and around the city area. You only need to read the weekend's Mercury , I think, to see that there were three fairly serious assaults on bouncers in Hobart over the weekend, so very clearly there is a lot of antisocial, unruly behaviour still occurring.

In Tasmania in recent times and since the commencement of PORT, we appear to have an increase in public-place offences and in particular offences of thuggery such as assaults. I am not sure of the strategies used by the new group but this is not new in policing. Task force policing is common and was used back in 1999, 2000 and 2001 in Launceston that I am aware of to fix an escalating antisocial group of assailants and cowards, as I referred to them then when I was in another position in Launceston. This did end with a number of threats of violence towards me. Task force policing is a common thing and it is necessary from time to time.

However, having raised these issues, I might say that the public do little to help themselves. Unfortunately they are reluctant to report offences to the police in many instances because they fear retribution of some form, and that is sad because retribution very seldom occurs in this State and probably does not in any other State either. However I congratulate the police for their attack on antisocial behaviour in the CBDs and the main shopping and other areas where youth congregate; I congratulate the police for putting into place this strategy to try to curb and control that behaviour.

[12.00 p.m.]

The Safe at Home policy is referred to on page 9 of this report. Is it successful? I am not too sure because the statistics show us an upward trend in the number of reported incidents, Mr President. This annual report in fact identifies that the upward trend simply reflects a change in community attitudes and reporting levels. That is what the annual report will tell us. I am not sure what is meant by reporting levels - whether there are greater numbers of people coming in - and accordingly seek an explanation on this statement. But how long can we rely on changed community attitudes?

This legislation, Mr President, has now been operating since 2004. Yet the same explanation was used last year and the year before to cover the increased number of domestic assaults et cetera being reported. Similar statements have been made during Estimates and at other times. I want to refer to the ultimate paragraph on page 9 under this heading. I quote from that last paragraph:
'The Department is confident that the Safe at Home strategy will deliver a longer-term reduction in family violence by supporting victims, changing offender behaviour, providing better data and continuing to contribute to a safer community for families.'

When is this likely to occur? If it does not drop, or remains similar in the current year, what will we be told again next year? It is still that change in attitude. It is still the change in reporting levels. I wonder when, if it continues to go that way, we will say that it is on the increase and we need to do more. It is all very well to say that the strategy has worked and that this type of serious incident is decreasing, but we need evidence of that because the figures show us that it is going the other way. It is a cowardly and pernicious crime. I accept that and nobody can tolerate it. I guess the other things that we can do here are to continually educate and publicise this crime. It is important also, Mr President, that we get the message to the perpetrators that if they persist in committing this crime, there will be a huge price to pay. That is, they can expect to go to jail and they can expect to probably lose their jobs and their families. We need to get that through to people who persist in that type of terrible and unacceptable behaviour.

This brings me now to the next part of the report. I want to refer to a position I feel the member for Nelson might want to expand on. He is not in the Chamber today, but he may be listening. We all support offenders being detained, charged and dealt with harshly, but we do not support innocent parties being dealt with in that way.

I want to quickly relate to the members, a case that I have been dealing with, and unfortunately there are other cases of innocent people who have been dealt with under this legislation. In this instance it concerned a distraught male of Dutch descent without any previous police history or history of violence, in full employment and the father of two children. He had been going through some difficulties with his marriage, which was caused by his wife working late at what he believed was babysitting. After some time he was given some information that if he went to a brothel in Launceston and called for a lady by a certain name he would be surprised.

Ms Forrest - Hasn't that brothel been closed down?

Mr DEAN - I do not know. I have no idea. You obviously know more about them than I do.

Ms Forrest - After the legislation that was passed last year it should have been closed down.

Mr DEAN - He certainly was surprised, Mr President, because when he asked for the lady of that name his wife appeared. That obviously resulted in an argument with raised voices. He does not deny that there was an argument when his wife returned home. That took place in front of his two children, aged about six and five, and he said that as a result of that he asked his wife to leave. However, she rang the police. The police turned up and it ended with his being arrested because the wife made a complaint of threatening behaviour that he had allegedly used toward her. He says that he was arrested and detained under this legislation. The police indicated to him that they were obliged to work within that legislation and there was some evidence and therefore they had to do what was required of them.

While he was telling me this story, Mr President, I must say that he was in tears and extremely emotional. He said his life was ruined through what he believes is legislation that is extremely strong. I spoke to him again a few weeks later and he said that he had got through that but the stigma was still attached to him and he was branded a criminal, which would impact on him for the rest of his life.

I do have some concerns with that legislation. The member for Nelson might want to expand on it, but to me it is a real concern. It has been talked about frequently, Mr President. Eminent judges, magistrates and lawyers have all raised on many occasions what they see as inadequacies of this legislation. The victims do need to be supported. We need to have a very strong framework in place to ensure that total protection is given to vulnerable people, mainly women and children. Nobody wants to support anyone who transgresses against them. But given the statistics that I have, I have some difficulties in accepting that our current system is preventing assaults on innocent and vulnerable people.

There are other interesting issues throughout this report, Mr President, and I would hope that some of the other members have looked at it and might bring forward some issues with which they have concerns. I think it behoves us as parliamentarians to go through these annual reports and to look at some of those areas where we believe things are not going well. If we go through these reports and simply look at those issues that are going well, then we really are not going to achieve too much at all.

I commend the police generally for what is happening in this State. They are some of the most competent police in the country - nobody could ever reasonably challenge that - and they are doing a great job. There is no doubt about that. But they would like to see a number of changes and they believe that many of the statistics referred to here could be changed if there were some changes to the way in which they are now required to work. I thank members and thank you, Mr President.