High demand for real police numbers

SAPOL should come clean on the “real number” of officers assigned to operational duties in local service areas, according to Opposition leader, Rob Kerin. If the employer were to provide an exact figure, he insists, it could end wasted political debate on the whole police numbers issue.

“The numbers have been used and abused by both sides of the House over a long period,” he said. “Surely properly accounted and verifiable numbers can be provided.

“If we could sort that one out once and for all, and get on to arguing about other police resource issues, (debate) might be a lot more constructive.”

Mr Kerin also suggested that accounting for the number of operational police, as well as those assigned to projects, should be an ongoing practice.

His comments came as he addressed more than 60 Police Association delegates and committee members at their annual conference in Fenwick Hall on October 19. Listening along with them at the two-day meeting were police union representatives from across Australia and New Zealand.

Mr Kerin’s views on the numbers issue fell entirely into line with an association recommendation to the Parliamentary Select Committee into the staffing, resourcing and efficiency of SAPOL.

In the opening address of the conference, association president, Peter Alexander, had raised the related issue of minimum staffing levels. He told the delegates that it remained a constant concern to his committee.

He urged Deputy Premier and Police Minister Kevin Foley - present at the conference - to encourage Commissioner Mal Hyde to “provide minimum staffing levels”, especially for patrols.

“We continually speak to our minister about this issue,” he said. “Of course, the difference between staffing levels and the minimum staffing level is an issue we can’t reach agreement on.

“But the community, and our members, deserve nothing less (than a minimum). And (minimum) staffing levels is one of the 53 recommendations the association has made to the Select Committee of the Legislative Council. It is a very important part of the resoucing of SAPOL generally.”

Mr Foley - whom the association had invited to address and formally open the conference - stressed the importance of government support for police, but did not comment on minimum staffing levels.

He instead asserted that working police officers most needed material resources and appropriate legislative powers to better perform their work.

“It’s easy for politicians...to pass the laws of the state, but quite another for those who have to enforce them,” he said.

“Making your job safer and more professionally rewarding is extremely important for government. As your minister, I see that as my most important role: to underpin the very important role that you undertake as police officers.”

Mr Foley also spoke of the latest enterprise agreement, on which the association membership voted during the week of the conference. He described his government’s offer - which included an average wage rise of 18.9 per cent and the introduction of new ranks and incentives - as “a very good deal”.

But he conceded that the government had faced tough negotiators among the members of an association team, led by Mr Alexander. He said they knew just how to put a government under pressure.

“Peter and (association secretary) Andy Dunn do that in a professional but, it would be fair to say, sometimes, robust way,” he said. “I commend the association leadership for its strong representation.”

Members’ votes, counted three days later, proved to be an overwhelming acceptance of the government offer.

Before he declared the conference open, Mr Foley claimed that, in other areas of policing, the government:

• Was on track to deliver on its promise to increase police numbers by 200.
• Planned to keep to its recruitment schedule over the next 12 months.
• Had introduced legislation to increase penalties for offenders who assault police.
• Would provide an extra $4 million for the Paedophile Task Force over the next two years.

As the conference continued, Messrs Alexander and Dunn delivered their annual reports, as did assistant secretaries, Mark Carroll and Tom Scheffler. Delegates heard welcome news of the association’s sound financial position, expanding industrial services and successful political lobbying.

Mr Alexander highlighted draft legislation - to protect officers from intimidation they might suffer as a consequence of their work - as an example of such success.

Later during the conference, Mr Alexander and association vice-president, Trevor Haskell, addressed delegates on the issue of superannuation. They revealed that, across the nation, the total number of police super schemes had blown out to 21.

Three of those - the Police Pension Scheme (PPS), the Police Lump Sum Scheme (PLSS) and the Southern State Superannuation (Triple S) scheme - operate in South Australia. Only the Triple S, with its 1200-odd members, remains open to new officers.

Mr Alexander explained that the newest of the schemes, such as the Triple S, offered neither the advantage of a defined benefit nor the option of a pension.

“And why are they (the 21 schemes) there?” he asked. “Because governments didn’t want to pay out pensions until you died. It’s as simple as that.”

He and Mr Haskell, a Police Superannuation Scheme board member, reiterated the association’s opposition to the Triple S scheme.

Mr Haskell said the association would lobby the government to open the Police Lump Sum Scheme - closed in 1994 - to new officers.

“It’s likely that, if we can work through this with the government, we won’t have problems with new people coming in,” he said. “The government can just legislate for them to go into the old lump-sum scheme.”

Guest speakers to the conference were Australasian Police Professional Standards Council executive director, Helmut Winzler, and University of Sydney commercial law lecturer, Giuseppe Carabetta.

Mr Winzler, a former Victoria Police superintendent, outlined the operations of the APPSC, which formed in the early 1990s.

He first explained that its purpose was to achieve full professional status for policing through national educational standards, tertiary qualifications and improved police practices.

“The council looks at the commonality of policing - wherever it’s practised - draws on the best of that, and establishes standards,” he said.

“It assists jurisdictions’ professional approach to policing through ongoing development of competencies, national training programmes, and autonomous guidelines for training and education.”

The police commissioners of Australia and New Zealand, as well as Mr Alexander - as PFA president - and NZ Police Association president, Greg O’Conner, make up the APPSC membership.

Mr Winzler suggested the scope for APPSC achievement was limited without police union support.

Mr Carabetta delivered an address entitled Two hats are better than one - legal status of the police in Australia. One of his earlier works, Employment status of the police in Australia - published in the Melbourne University Law Review last year - formed the basis for his presentation.

In it, he explained the “well-established rule of the common law” that police officers are not employees, but rather “independent office-holders exercising original authority in the execution of their duties”.

He said court decisions had, over the years, reaffirmed the rule, but insisted that it was incompatible with state police officers’ employment rights.

Mr Carabetta proposed that the common law position be re-examined by means of “judicial intervention”, rather than legislative reform.

In the conference business sessions and association AGM, delegates debated and carried 17 motions. Among them were directions for the association to:

• Request SAPOL not to change its corporate goals or directions without first conducting a human-resource audit to identify human-resource implications.
• Request SAPOL to conduct human-resource audits at two-year intervals.
• Lobby SAPOL to pay wage maintenance to shift-workers engaged as IMOST trainers.
• Lobby SAPOL to review country CIB units and return them to their previous strengths, without filling lost positions with staff from within an LSA in which a particular CIB is located.

From another of the carried motions came a resolution to form a country policing sub-committee, of which association committee member, Jim Tappin, would act as chairman.

At the AGM, committee members, delegates and members voted unanimously to bestow life membership upon Mr Alexander, association deputy president, Nick Pippos, and treasurer, Mick Standing.

In the final session of the conference, interstate and overseas representatives gave delegates brief industrial reports on their respective jurisdictions. Newly elected Police Association (Victoria) president, Janet Mitchell, took part in the talks.

Mr Alexander described the delegates’ input at the conference as “excellent”. “They represented all of the ranks, functions and geographical locations in which our members work across the state,” he said.

“With an excellent enterprise bargaining agreement then imminent, there wasn’t a lot of heat in the debate, but that provided the opportunity for strategic planning.”