DUTTON MUST EXPLAIN LACK OF AFP REPRESENTATION

Peter Dutton must immediately explain why there is no longer Australian Federal Police liaison point in his office.

According to reports, this is the first time since the mid-1990s that the AFP have not had an officer placed with the relevant minister in Parliament House.

 

This is extremely concerning – the AFP plays a crucial role keeping our community safe, yet they don’t even have a representative in their minister’s office. These liaison roles are critical to ensuring the minister is across important issues in the agency.

 

The AFP is a highly specialised agency that runs complex and sensitive operations and criminal investigations. Peter Dutton’s claims that his portfolio is too big to have a liaison officer from the AFP in his office are not credible. No other agency liaison officer in his office could represent and advise on the full suite of specialist AFP functions.

 

Peter Dutton must explain whether he personally requested the removal of the AFP liaison officer from his office, or whether the AFP removed the officer due to some sort of breakdown in the agency’s relationship with the Minister. If the Home Affairs super-portfolio responsibilities are too much for Peter Dutton, then the Prime Minister must give them to someone who is better placed to handle them.   

 

The disappearance of this role comes on top of the Liberals’ record of savage cuts to the AFP and shows how our frontline law enforcement agency simply isn’t a priority for Peter Dutton.

 

In the last Budget, the Liberals cut $205 million from the AFP over the forward estimates – a cut Peter Dutton presided over as Minister for Home Affairs. As a result, the AFP Commissioner recently confirmed that staffing at the AFP is predicted to fall from 6448 personnel in 2018-19 to 5881 personnel in 2021-22 – an extraordinary reduction of 567 AFP personnel.

 

The AFP is under enormous pressure. According to the AFP Commissioner, referrals of drug matters have risen by nearly 300 percent in three years and that victim-based crime matters have risen 200 percent. At the same time, Liberal cuts are forecast to hit the AFP’s existing capacity to tackle fraud, organised crime and anti-narcotics.

 

Instead of supporting our dedicated AFP officers to perform their critically important work, the Liberals have chosen to cut AFP funding, slash staff and now won’t even have an AFP representative in Parliament House.