Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this discussion of Senator Ludwig’s motion proposing a reference to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. It is interesting that this is a matter concerning the Australian Federal Police and that the debate at this point involves Senator Ludwig and me, because both of us as members of this chamber have had extensive contact and engagement with the Australian Federal Police in a number of contexts over the last few years.

Certainly, as Senator Ludwig noted, there was a previous Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee inquiry, chaired, as I recall, by Senator Jim McKiernan. Although that was referred to by Senator Ludwig as a committee inquiry with a narrow focus, I have different memories. I remember it as a broad-ranging, comprehensive inquiry which explored far and wide the administration and operation of the Australian Federal Police and matters such as the one before us this afternoon. In fact, we were well supported by the Australian Federal Police through the information they provided us with during that inquiry. Perhaps we will have to agree to differ on that point.

I will come to matters of confected political exaggeration that Senator Ludwig has pursued in his remarks a little later, but let me deal with the substance of the reference, which is essentially AFP recruiting and, in particular, Australia’s national and international policing requirements.

Senator Ludwig was right about one of the observations he made this afternoon—that is, that the government does oppose this reference. The government opposes this reference because there are no particularly cogent reasons for it and none were advanced in this afternoon’s debate that would persuade us otherwise. Yesterday in the chamber, reference was made by Senator Ludwig to a shortfall, allegedly, of 421 people in the AFP’s recruitment planning for the 2005-06 financial year, and it seems that that assertion formed at least part of the basis for his proposed reference to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. It seems to me, however, on a closer examination of the figures, that that assertion itself is not correct. What I would like to present to the chamber is a more accurate representation of the AFP’s actual staffing levels and its success against recruitment plans. I also reject the assertion that the government does not have a plan and a strategic approach to these matters as far as the AFP is concerned.

Let me go through some of the numbers that have been discussed. In the 2005-06 Budget Paper No.1, the AFP projected a staffing level of 5,191 in 2005-06. In fact, the AFP reached an actual staffing level of 5,150 for the 2005-06 financial year. That indicates a shortfall of only 41—which was addressed, I am advised, by police recruit courses on both 17 July and 14 August this year. Senator Ludwig was referring to forecast figures published in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 budget papers No. 1. It is important to note, however, that the published figures for each year were determined on different bases. The figures for 2005-06 are a whole-of-AFP position which includes ACT policing, whereas I am advised that the figures for the 2006-07 paper do not in fact include ACT policing numbers. Having reviewed the data, the AFP acknowledges that there was an inconsistency in presenting the 2005-06 data in Budget Paper No. 1—an acknowledgement which it is entirely appropriate to make in this chamber. I am advised that there is a clear undertaking to ensure a consistent approach in the future. Staffing figures in the future will include those relevant ACT policing numbers.

The forecast AFP staffing level of 4,793 in the 2006-07 Budget Paper No. 1, published in May 2006, does not include ACT policing. Nor does it take into account the government’s more recent decision to increase the AFP’s International Deployment Group to 1,200 personnel over the next two years. Indeed, a more accurate description of the environment in which the AFP finds itself is that it has been in a period of continued growth over the past five years. So, rather than Senator Ludwig’s claimed decrease of 95, the increase between 2004-05 and 2005-06 in actual staffing was 372—that is, it rose from 4,778 to 5,150. The government has continued to show its strong commitment to the work of the AFP over the past five years, with the AFP workforce—not including the former Australian Protective Service—growing by almost 1,200 staff in that period.

I would also like to make some comments about the environment surrounding the International Deployment Group. Prior to the recent IDG announcement, the AFP had a total of 848 recruitment actions either in progress or planned for the next 18 months. That recruitment planning is being revised upward to incorporate the recent government announcement of the expansion of the IDG to 1,200. I also understand, and it has been a matter of some public discussion in recent days, that as at September 2006 there are over 2,000 people—in fact, 2,372 people—who have put in unsolicited applications for police and protective service officer positions in the AFP.

The AFP has in fact recently concluded an independent review of its recruitment structure and practices in recognition of the significant relevance of ongoing recruitment activity to AFP business outcomes. The recommendations of that review have been accepted by the AFP Commissioner and will be implemented over coming months. In addition, in late December last year, the AFP also introduced a new online recruitment system for police applications. That system has seen significant increases in the number of unsolicited applications received.

In late 2005, the AFP also began a strategic review of its medium-term financial outlook. A retired former deputy secretary to the Department of Finance and Administration, Mr Len Early, has been working with AFP managers and also the AFP finance area to map the emergent financial outlook for the organisation for the next four years and to develop strategies precisely to address those emergent issues. It is expected that that review will be concluded by the end of this calendar year and will form the basis of future financial planning.

So, in contrast to the observations made by Senator Ludwig, the AFP’s workforce planning is undertaken by a very dedicated workforce-planning unit. The work of that unit is overseen by a senior-level strategic workforce planning committee, which includes the deputy commissioner and the AFP’s chief operating officer. The committee meets monthly to review AFP workforce targets and strategies, and it monitors achievements from recruitment through to the completion of training.

The AFP is continually reviewing the demands they face. Senator Ludwig is also right on that point, as was the minister in the observations he made in question time yesterday. Those demands are significant and they are dynamic. That is the nature of the environment in which the AFP are policing. They review the resources and the personnel they need to meet those demands. On the basis of that ongoing review and—ironically, in light of some of Senator Ludwig’s observations—on the basis of the access that the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee and members of this chamber have to deal with the AFP on these questions, there is not a need to refer this matter specifically to a parliamentary committee. This government has quadrupled funding to the AFP since 1996 and, as I have demonstrated, it has increased personnel numbers in that process. The government’s commitment is to ensure that the Australian Federal Police have both the resources and the personnel they need to meet domestic and international obligations.

It is pertinent to note, perhaps, that there are other interesting organisations that do not appear to agree with Senator Ludwig’s proposition in relation to this reference. The ABC earlier today reported that the AFP Association has rejected the views put forward by Senator Ludwig and does not share the concerns that the force is struggling to attract new recruits. In fact the AFPA’s Jim Torr is reported as saying that he is confident that the federal government’s promise and commitment to boost numbers means that this is not the issue that is being presented in this chamber tonight. The ABC quotes Mr Torr as saying the federal government has just very recently made a ‘commitment for 400 more police into the AFP’. Mr Torr said that upon delivery of those numbers the issue would be put ‘beyond any doubt,’ and that the government had ‘made a commitment of around half a billion dollars to bring the members up to that level.’ The piece goes on to say that the AFPA said that it ‘is confident that the recent funding boost by the federal government will help the force meet its recruitment targets’. So not even the industrial association that supports the AFP is supporting this supposed reference in this chamber this afternoon.

I want to make some brief reference though to Senator Ludwig’s assertions—and in my view they are little more than that—that the government has in some heroic manner done away with the accountability requirements of the Senate. I think that Senator Ludwig said that the system was under constant sabotage, and that included the estimates process—an observation that I find interesting as I spend more hours with Senator Ludwig in an estimates room than I do with members of my family during most weeks. Hundreds and hundreds of questions are put on notice and questions taken across the table are put to agencies like the Australian Federal Police in estimates meeting after estimates meeting and are answered comprehensively in as timely a manner as possible. That did not change in May and it will not change in November, so that is not an accurate representation from Senator Ludwig as to the way in which the committees will work.

The senator asserts that the government is of the view that scrutiny is not good. If the government were of the view that scrutiny is not good, then we would not provide members of the committee with access to the Australian Federal Police, as we so often do, not just through the formal hearing process but also in an informal environment where constructive discussions and exchanges can take place and where members of the opposition can avail themselves of the opportunity. Members of the opposition do not appear to complain about it at the time. We would not invite the AFP and its associated agencies at the most senior levels to spend hours and hours in committee environments in public hearings, with material on the record, government and opposition senators asking questions and senior officers of the AFP answering those questions constructively and willingly if this government were in the business of avoiding scrutiny. We just would not do it. Why would we? That is what puts the lie to the assertions that Senator Ludwig makes this afternoon about avoidance of scrutiny and about constant sabotage of the system including the estimates process. It is simply not demonstrable on the evidence, particularly in relation to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. As the chair of that committee both in its new incarnation and previously, I absolutely and totally reject that. There is no question to the best of my recollection or knowledge that those opposite have ever been denied the opportunity to pursue matters of concern to them in relation to AFP policing and the associated issues.

I think that this notice of motion perhaps belies a desperate search, if you like, on the part of those opposite to find something constructive to do. It is not necessary to pursue it in this way. The committee has plenty of work to do. The committee gives those opposite plenty of access in relation to the Australian Federal Police, as do the minister and the government. I have never heard the Australian Federal Police decline an opportunity to appear before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee either formally or informally. I am sure that position will not change, notwithstanding the change in the committee process. For those reasons and the matters to which I have earlier referred, the government rejects this proposal for a committee inquiry.