Canberra Liberals MLA Jeremy Hanson, Deputy Opposition Leader and Shadow Minister for Police, will today call on the ACT Government to increase the number of police to fully meet operational requirements in the 2023-24 ACT Budget.
The call comes following the release of the 2023 Report on Government Services from the Productivity Commission released last week that shows the ACT has the lowest number of police per capita, the lowest funding per person for police, and the lowest clearance rates for property crime in Australia.
- ROGS: ACT police funding and numbers lowest in Australia (1 February)
- Union, Liberals call for more funding for ACT police (1 February)
“The Barr-Rattenbury government has made a deliberate decision to defund the police,” Mr Hanson said.
“The ACT is the only jurisdiction in Australia to record a negative annual growth rate in real recurrent expenditure from 2016-17 to 2020-21.
“It is astounding that the ACT has less police now than a decade ago, despite population growth of over 70,000 people during the same period.
“The figures from the recent Productivity Commission report highlight what the Canberra Liberals and [the Australian Federal Police Association] AFPA have been saying for a long time, and now the Chief Police Officer has said that he does not have enough police to do his job properly.”
Mr Hanson has also called on the ACT government to request that the Australian Federal Police release the Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) report that will provide important information on how many more police are operationally required.
“The PWC report should provide advice on the exact number of police needed to meet operational requirements, and that is clearly what they need; more police on the ground to meet those requirements.
“It appears everyone is on the same page when it comes to delivering more police in the ACT except the Minister,” Mr Hanson concluded.
