Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee for inquiry and report by 7 February 2007:

Australia’s national and international policing requirements over the medium- and long-term, with particular reference to:

(a)

personnel and staffing needs of relevant Commonwealth agencies, particularly the Australian Federal Police;

(b)

the adequacy of existing workforce planning arrangements in meeting those needs;

(c)

the effectiveness of existing recruitment practices and training programs;

(d)

the impact of Commonwealth police personnel strategies on state and territory police forces; and

(e)

any other related matter.

There is a very simple reason why I am moving this motion for an inquiry into Australia’s national and international policing requirements over the medium and longer term. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Senate has not had the opportunity to look at this issue nor has there been a substantive inquiry by the government into this issue.

If you look at the Australian Federal Police, at its birth and its subsequent changes, you will see that it has changed in reaction to events. It was the bombing outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney back in 1978 that brought about the AFP’s creation. Then the terrorist attacks in New York, almost five years ago to the day, led to significant shifts in its role and an increase in its funding under the current government.

What has been lacking is a strategic assessment of our future policing needs to help guide workforce planning, not just at the federal level but also at the state and territory levels. A failure to have this forward-looking approach means you end up with the quagmire that this government finds itself in today. Look at the response of the Minister for Justice and Customs to a dorothy dixer that he took during yesterday’s question time. Senator Ellison was asked what this government had done to ensure Australia’s security interests. All he talked about were the laws this government had passed and the money it had appropriated. Strong laws and sufficient government funding are both important parts of the equation for a successful policing approach in the modern security environment. But on their own they are not enough. On their own, neither can put themselves to good use. Strong laws cannot enforce themselves and money cannot spend itself on what it was intended for, and sometimes it cannot even be spent at all.

To put the laws to good use two things are required: firstly, sufficient numbers of police officers who are appropriately and properly trained and able to enforce the laws; and, secondly, accountability and transparency mechanisms to help ensure that money is actually put to the use that was intended. Those two elements form the other half of the equation, and both are essential elements that are severely lacking under the current government. For one thing, the government has done away with the accountability mechanisms of the Senate ever since it took control in July last year. Its constant sabotage of the Senate, particularly in the estimates process and the committee structure, have made the task of holding this government to account more arduous. I might add that this does not mean that we never get to the bottom of the stench or that problems disappear, but, rather, that the problems fester away under the surface and it takes longer than necessary to find the solution that the public deserve and that this government should then address.

If you require particular proof that the government wants to hinder accountability when it comes to funding policing then look no further than its refusal to support this inquiry. I am aware of the numbers in this place. This inquiry will not get up, because the government will not support it, but it is an inquiry that should get up and the government should support it. When you look at the government in terms of police numbers and training, you will see that, perhaps more through negligence than intent, it has dropped the ball when it comes to recruiting and training sufficient numbers of police officers. The reason that the government is failing to make a strategic assessment of Australia’s longer term policing needs is that it is not in a position to put in place a plan to ensure that those needs can be met.

In many ways, passing laws and appropriating money, as I said, are the easy parts of the equation to get right, since all the government requires is having the numbers in the Senate. Finding suitable recruits, training them up and giving them plenty of field experience, on the other hand, is not something that can be done overnight. It is a process that takes some time. The government, from time to time, sets itself one-off discretionary targets, such as the recently announced increase to the AFP’s International Deployment Group, but the problem with discretionary targets that are not part of any universal goals is that, when the government comes under pressure to deliver them, they may just come at the cost of other areas of the agency.

So, in two years time, if the government manages to successfully boost the IDG—which is an important initiative that Labor, as I indicated at the time, fully supports—we will need to be sure that experienced officers have not simply been diverted or pulled from other areas of operations within the AFP, such as fighting drugs, crimes abroad, fraud, terrorism and sex-trafficking crimes. All of those exist for the AFP to fight.

The evidence to date causes me serious concern. We can go to some of the evidence that demonstrates that this government has failed in the five years since September 11 to put in place a forward-looking plan. Consider the manner in which the government has increased funding to the AFP over that period, even if we look at one of the things that it has tried to do. In the five budgets since September 11, not one of the significant increases to funding has been built into the forward estimates—not one. In fact, across each of the budgets, the forward estimates for out years projected an average annual decrease of 3.5 per cent and sometimes as high as 22 per cent. The problem facing the Australian Federal Police Commissioner is that, when he looks at his budget and sees a one-off increase of 16 per cent for the first year followed by a decrease for every year after that, he is hardly in the best position to grow the organisation by the actual average increase of 26 per cent. It is just not the right way to grow the Australian Federal Police.

If you look at the effects of not having a plan, you will see that it is of little surprise that the Australian Federal Police average staffing levels fell short of the projected growth in the last financial year by 421 personnel. The 2005-06 Budget Paper No. 1 showed that the Australian Federal Police had expected the average staffing level to rise from 4,865 to 5,191, but the table in the 2006-07 budget paper showed that it ended up falling to 4,717. In other words, the agency was unable to deliver what was projected in the previous year. The 2006-07 budget paper then predicted an increase of only 23 personnel. Not being satisfied with that, we had the opportunity of asking the Australian Federal Police about that at estimates. The AFP responded: ‘Those are the figures in the PBS’—that is, the portfolio budget statement. ‘Are those the figures that we expect? The answer is no.’ So, just three weeks after the budget figures were published, the Australian Federal Police were already contesting their accuracy. It is little wonder that they had difficulty in meeting the previous year’s target.

I had been concerned that the Australian Federal Police had difficulty in actually spending their appropriated money each year, so I put the question to them during the May hearing. The Australian Federal Police took the question on notice—No. 103, for those who are interested in reading the response for themselves. This is what they had to say about the receivables for the 2003-04 year:

A significant upward movement in receivables—

that is, $145 million—

in 2003-04 is due to the forecast surplus of $80m and deferred capital expenditure of $64m.

The main drivers of the surplus were delays in implementing new measures (particularly recruitment activities) and an underspend of $32m for PNG related activities …

I understand and accept the complications related to Papua New Guinea and recognise that the money concerned, a few hundred million dollars, was returned to the government in the last budget, but the Australian Federal Police itself chose to specifically mention, of all other activities, delays in recruitment. Yet the minister told the Australian public on national TV on 27 August that the Australian Federal Police has no trouble in recruiting. It just defies belief.

It is worth mentioning that, in their response to question on notice No. 103, the AFP failed to provide any explanation whatsoever for the additional $275 million in receivables as of the last budget. To be fair, I have asked the Australian Federal Police to provide further clarification on their answer, so I do not want to prejudice their response. But it is far from reassuring to see that it is now September and there has been no answer to date. What it amounts to is a 37 per cent increase in Australian Federal Police funding from the Commonwealth for that year which is as yet unexplained.

I turn to some of the other areas that have become newsworthy issues—for example, airport security and the Wheeler report. The Wheeler report recommended that the Australian Federal Police take control of airport security. The government has managed to put into place airport commanders but, as far as getting the full complement of community police officers together is concerned, it seems that achieving that is a little way off. What we have is airport commanders at airports but no community police officers to go with them.

Meanwhile, an analysis of the numbers in the most recent annual report for 2004-05 reveals that there are 4,770 AFP staff. If you break that down, you will find that 258 were stationed in overseas posts; at least a further 147 were on peacekeeping duties overseas; 1,205 are protective service officers providing guarding and not investigating services; 26 were on secondments to other agencies; a further 1,291 were unsworn; 608 were on ACT local policing duties; and 20 were on local policing duties in other territories. That means that there were fewer than 1,215 sworn operational police officers actively investigating domestic federal crime during that year—that is, less than one sworn officer concentrating on fighting terrorism, illicit drug distribution, money laundering and fraud against the Commonwealth for every 15,000 people.

It is not just the Australian Federal Police that has to deal with the consequences of this government’s failure to properly plan in the area of policing; it impacts upon state and territory police forces as well. To begin with, existing skills shortages across the economy mean that all police forces have a shrinking pool to recruit from. When the federal government bursts onto the scene and announces a massive increase in its own recruitment activities, this can throw a disproportionate burden on state and territory workforce planning.

There is another issue, though—that is, the Australian Federal Police may be forced to poach directly from state and territory police forces in order to achieve its target. The government has given assurances that this will not occur, but the fact that the minister could not say how many of the current applicants before the Australian Federal Police were existing officers in state and territory police forces suggests that he is not particularly worried about the impact it might have on any agency other than his own.

Now the government is about to defend its position of not having a Senate inquiry into this matter. The last inquiry was before September 11; it was a rather narrow inquiry, dealing with certain matters. There have been none from the government, unless you go right back to 1998—that was the last one. An inquiry like this will not get off the ground because this government will not support it. In the first week of the new committee structure, it is surprising that the government is going to knock over a reasonable reference to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs to look at this issue. I think it is because this is an inquiry that this government does not want as it thinks that scrutiny is not good. You could say that it is because it might think that there are no serious concerns about the current state of affairs. The government might want to pretend that everything is rosy, but even the minister failed to deny Labor’s claim that average staffing levels fell 421 short of the target for the last financial year. He was given the opportunity yesterday to do that and he failed to take that up.

The reason is that the government are addicted to shutting down all avenues for holding themselves to account. They tried to argue that changing the committee system would mean that more inquiries would get up because the government would not have to worry about them being run by a hostile chair. That was one of the arguments that was put. I am not going to get direct about this, but they put up a number and range of spurious reasons as to why the new committee structure would provide a more streamlined and efficient system which would allow committees to deal with references. That has not come to pass, I have to say. On the second day into the new committee structure, here we are: the government are again seeking to reject this reference, despite the compelling need for it and despite the government’s claim to care about national security.

The Prime Minister likes to ask voters to judge him on his record. I have looked at the PM’s record on national policing and I have to say that I am far from reassured. If this government were proud and confident of its record on national policing then it would have nothing to be concerned about and nothing to fear from having an inquiry proceed, particularly given that it would be responsible for chairing it as well.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unless there is anyone else to speak, I will close the debate. We have now heard a half-hearted attempt to justify why a Senate inquiry should not be had into this. The government hides behind its own committee to say that there should not be an inquiry in this place. In the committee estimates process last time, this government, with little notice, took away the spillover days. If you do not think that they were a valuable contribution to how the Senate works and how the estimates process works, I would ask you to reflect upon what it means. It potentially means that significant hours are removed from the debate during a committee process. This means that questions that would otherwise have been asked, with time allowed for a response, have to be put on notice, and there is then a wait for a careful answer months down the track. Answers are provided—there is no argument about that. But if those on the other side do not think that the estimates process has been sabotaged as a consequence of removing the estimates spillover days in May then I would ask them to reflect upon what that has meant and how the government has managed the committee process through the use of spillover days, which were used for the purpose of hearing certain issues such as the Vivian Solon matter.

One wonders whether the issue of Vivian Solon would have come out if spillover days were not available to be used. When you listen to the defence that has been put up today you hear that matters that go to the Australian Federal Police, such as what might be called the ‘early review’, will go ahead. Is there a guarantee that that review will be public? Is there a guarantee that the Australian Federal Police will provide that to the committee? I do not know. Do the government know? I am not sure they know that themselves. Is there a commitment from the Australian Federal Police to make that review available to the opposition? I cannot answer that.

A Senate committee would allow the Senate to look at those issues and examine them. The issue of numbers might be raised. There might be open debate about whether the information you have from the government’s perspective is accurate; there might be debate about whether my information is accurate. It is from the portfolio budget statements, so it would be interesting if it were not accurate. It might require an explanation from the Australian Federal Police—which they could have an opportunity to answer as an aside.

Was there a narrowly or widely cast Senate inquiry? There was, but it was prior to 9-11 and the significant increase in funding to the Australian Federal Police. If you are going to use figures which refer to quadrupling the size of the budget available to the AFP, I ask the government to reflect upon that figure and give me the base and the figure it has quadrupled to. These are all issues that could be debated and examined in an inquiry such as the one I am proposing. This is broader than simply looking at staffing numbers, as I indicated during the primary debate; it also looks at a national focus between state and federal police. There was no response from the government in respect of that issue or the impact that increasing the Australian Federal Police would have on state policing.

If the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth government are truly going to play a national role in fighting terrorism, drugs, crime and fraud, and in deployment overseas, they should also consider the wider implications of their recruitment in the short to medium term. The inquiry would also look at that, but there was no response from the government on that—there was no response from the other side in respect of that matter. Why? Because there is no argument against it. There is no argument to justify why a Senate inquiry would not be able to look at all of those issues and have access not just to the narrow focus of the Australian Federal Police but also to others who can make submissions, provide views and inform the Senate of what they think—not simply what the AFP might think or, for that matter, what I, Labor or other members of the committee might think—are the issues at hand. The strength of a Senate inquiry is to draw other submissions and parties into the debate to provide information and explanation. To discard that strength is to throw away a significant amount of scrutiny that this government would otherwise have. It is a poor response to say the AFP make themselves available—of course they do; they make themselves available to the legal and constitutional legislation committee now referred to as the standing committee. But that is not the point of an inquiry.

The point of an inquiry is to provide a much broader view, and everybody here knows that. In terms of the Australian Federal Police Association—I will not go to the specifics. To the senator who at least quoted from the document: look at where it mentions the reference to a review by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee or perhaps go there. I ask you to consider whether that is a viable position to advocate.

The broader issue is whether or not, after 9-11, the Australian Federal Police should have a broader inquiry into matters that go to national policing. There are, as I have argued, primarily cogent reasons why the Senate should have the ability to look into state and federal issues from a national and an overseas perspective. There is a strong argument for why this is so. To say that this place, since 1 July 2005, has continued to remain accountable in the same way that the Senate has been in the past is short-sighted and belies the figures that underpin it. When you look at the number of references that this government has accepted, the number of gags and guillotines shortening the debate, the number of amendments during committee stages and the shortening of Senate inquiries looking at particular legislation, you have to say in sum total: this government avoids scrutiny where it can. This is another example of this government avoiding scrutiny where it can.

Question put:

That the motion (That the motion (Senator Ludwig’s) be agreed to.) be agreed to.