Police Complaints Authority (Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct) Amendment Bill

In continuing the debate on the Police Complaints Authority I point out that this is important legislation that National will be supporting. The point I was making last Thursday when the House rose was that although it is such important legislation, if we look at the time frame in which this bill was introduced, we see that it was introduced to the House on 30 March and referred to the Law and Order Committee on 30 March, with submissions closing on 14 April. Here we have a bill that has come back very, very quickly. There were only 2 weeks for submissions to be heard but, more important, when we look at the select committee process, we see that the Law and Order Committee has had to truncate the time frame available for this legislation to be debated, from last Thursday and the latter part of the House’s sitting time carrying through now into today.

In this second reading debate, in which I am privileged to take part, I want to emphasise, for those people who may not be aware of it, what the Police Complaints Authority is about. The commentary on the bill states: “The bill amends the Police Complaints Authority Act 1988 to allow the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct, established by the Governor-General on 16 February 2004, to fulfil its terms of reference to inquire into the adequacy of any investigations carried out by the police on behalf of the Police Complaints Authority.” That is fine—that is a very clear statement of what the bill is about.

Some concerns have been expressed in relation to clause 6, which deals with giving disclosures to the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct—a very important provision. We note that two Supplementary Order Papers have been lodged. One is in the name of Stephen Franks and one in the name of Marc Alexander, who was the deputy chair of the Law and Order Committee.

I am not going to look at the merits of either of those Supplementary Order Papers, which will be debated during the Committee stage, but I think it is important to realise—and this is a safeguard that the public at large are looking for—that clause 6 clarifies that only those police officers who carried out an investigation can disclose matters to the commission. Otherwise, we could see that it becomes open-ended. In fact, in the original bill, it stated “any member of the police involved in the investigation”. So that clarifies this issue, and it is important—the bill now states that only those who were involved will take part.

Supplementary Order Paper 209, put forward by Mr Franks, spells it out quite well—and it will be debated and voted on during the Committee stage, not today. Mr Franks advocates amending clause 6 by adding new subsection (2B) to section 32(2A). New subsection (2B) states, in part: “(a) an acknowledgment that the Commission is aware of the confidentiality that persons who have informed the authority of the matter …”. There needs to be some safeguards, and that provision would assist the commission to withstand the pressures for unnecessary public disclosure. I am not going to pre-empt what the outcome will be for Mr Franks of the ACT party, but certainly his provision does clarify in our minds a very important concern that was expressed earlier on.

To bring this debate to the close, we note there is an expiry date on the bill. It will expire 1 year after the commission has reported to the Governor-General. That is important. This legislation is going to cover a finite period; it is not open-ended, at all. I note that there was one submitter who wanted the commission to remain continuously in operation, with an open mandate and no time frame with which to complete its investigation of any complaints that might come forward in the future. That was not accepted by the select committee and, from National’s point of view, we are quite comfortable that this commission is for a finite period and for a specific purpose. That is one of the reasons National is supporting the bill, but we draw the House’s attention to the fact that if cross-party support is wanted on important legislation such as this, it would be a courtesy to allow a much longer time frame in which submissions could be made and the select committee could meet. It had to meet during the adjournment to allow this bill to proceed at this time. With those few comments, I say that National will support this bill.

Bill read a second time.