House debates

Monday, 18 June 2007

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008

Consideration in Detail

7:06 pm

Photo of Arch BevisArch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Homeland Security) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your restraint and great demonstration of impartiality, which I suspect I would not have been able to rise to. I want to follow up on that last point. It would be useful, I think, if the Attorney-General, in providing the answer to that earlier question, could make clear the number of sworn police officers as opposed to people in other positions within the AFP—which of course now includes the Australian Protective Service. On that point, I also seek comment from the Attorney-General about the role of the Protective Service personnel in overseas deployments and indeed whether or not the Attorney-General thinks that it is desirable for the AFP to have within its overseas contingents, in places like the Solomon Islands, a mixture of Protective Service staff and sworn officers. While we are on the subject of the AFP, I also invite the Attorney-General to give us some idea of when he thinks the government will finally have sufficient numbers of personnel to meet the Wheeler recommendations for airport security. There is, as I understand it, still a shortfall in those areas—that is, for response teams at the airports from the Federal Police and Protective Service. I am not sure whether he will have that on hand. He might also care to take that on notice.

Comments

No comments