House debates

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009

Consideration in Detail

4:31 pm

Photo of Bob DebusBob Debus (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

We can only observe that the member for Sturt is a late convert to the idea that there should be strong oversight of the operations of the police and similar organisations within the Commonwealth through an integrity commission of this sort. The truth is that ACLEI was only created quite recently and it was created with a very small budget. In this budget, despite the very severe constraints under which we were at the time of framing the document, the funding was increased by 40 per cent. As soon as the new government came to power, it increased the budget of ACLEI by 40 per cent. The funding will jump over a number of years and, as the funding increases, so will the staffing. I have had conversations with the commissioner, who, I might say, has expressed his delight at last at beginning to receive something like respectable funds.

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