Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Police Association President Paul McCue reacts to the appointment of Kate Worden as the new Police Minister

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Police Association President Paul McCue reacts to the appointment of Kate Worden as the new Police Minister · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest stories of course, this week has
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: been the portfolio reshuffle which has been seen and it
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  Speaker 1: has obviously seen the Police portfolio changing hands. Now joining
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  Speaker 1: me on the line is the Police Association President Paul McGue.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Paul.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning Katie, welcome back.
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  Speaker 2: Oh thanks mate.
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  Speaker 1: Now, Paul, last time we spoke, you were hopeful that
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  Speaker 1: the Chief Minister would take the portfolio off Police.
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  Speaker 2: That didn't happen. What's your reaction to the changes earlier
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  Speaker 2: in the week.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, our positions always been the Chief Minister should
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  Speaker 3: hold that portfolio. Obviously the new files government have decided
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  Speaker 3: that the Territory Families Minister Kate Warden, it's a better
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  Speaker 3: fit given she carries the portfolio of Territory Families, Domestic
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  Speaker 3: Family and Sexual Violence and now Police, and I guess
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  Speaker 3: from their perspective they're looking to try and get some
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  Speaker 3: I guess better cooperation and synergy between those agencies. But
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  Speaker 3: the obviously oppositions always been the Chief Minister should hold that.
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  Speaker 3: But that's not the case and we'll carry on and
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  Speaker 3: you know, continue to lobby on behalf of our members
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  Speaker 3: with our new minister.
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  Speaker 2: Now, tell me.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think that having the territory family's portfolio and
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  Speaker 1: also that portfolio of domestic and family violence in addition
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  Speaker 1: to the police portfolio, do you think that that is
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  Speaker 1: all going to work.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I mean they are obviously some of the
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  Speaker 3: biggest portfolios in the territory. I mean, you know, police
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  Speaker 3: certainly from a police perspective, you know, much of our
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  Speaker 3: time is spent dealing with the dysfunctional family units, our
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  Speaker 3: correlated harm, youth crime, and the list goes on, and
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  Speaker 3: of course you know they are going to be challenging
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  Speaker 3: portfolios to work together. But I am aware. You know,
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  Speaker 3: we met with the new Minister the day it was announced,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, obviously she's outlined that she's spoken with
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  Speaker 3: both CEOs Ken Davies and the Commissioner of Police and
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  Speaker 3: she's obviously got some ideas around how things can be
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  Speaker 3: obviously improved in terms of the support from our perspective,
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  Speaker 3: the support from police, and that's what we put across
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  Speaker 3: was very often, as you would be aware, it's always
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  Speaker 3: the police that are left to pick up the pieces
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  Speaker 3: because there's no other agency out in about twenty four
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  Speaker 3: to seven and that's certainly something that has to change
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  Speaker 3: under the new minister.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you reckon it's going to provide some insight
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  Speaker 1: to the minister now being able to see what the
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  Speaker 1: police are dealing with from that other side.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I think so. I mean, obviously, you know,
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  Speaker 3: nobody wants to see kids out on the street at night.
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  Speaker 3: No one wants to see the enormous amounts of domestic
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  Speaker 3: and family violence that takes place in our correlated harm. Now,
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  Speaker 3: you know, certainly from our perspective, the police are doing
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  Speaker 3: everything they can with the resourcing they've got, but of course,
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  Speaker 3: far too often when they left, say with a youth
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  Speaker 3: in the middle of the night, and they ring up
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  Speaker 3: territory families or they're ringing up other agencies, whether government
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  Speaker 3: or non government, there's just no one there to help.
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  Speaker 3: And that's just simply not good enough from a government perspective,
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  Speaker 3: and that's certainly one of the points we made with
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  Speaker 3: the new minister this week.
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  Speaker 1: I do wonder whether that's going to you know, whether
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  Speaker 1: that's going to see some improvement in that space. Like
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  Speaker 1: I remember not so long ago catching up with one
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  Speaker 1: of the police officers in Alice Springs and I believe
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  Speaker 1: it was the commander and him basically saying that there's
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  Speaker 1: been a situation where there was a couple of kids
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  Speaker 1: who were really very young, who had been out and
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  Speaker 1: allegedly broken into a home. You know, when they then
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  Speaker 1: took those kids home, nobody had noticed that they are
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  Speaker 1: even gone. And I think that, you know, if you've
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  Speaker 1: got the police kind of dealing with that type of situation.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that that's happening all the time, but
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  Speaker 1: in some cases it is if they're dealing with that situation.
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  Speaker 1: I really hope that by having the same minister overseeing
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  Speaker 1: those two portfolios that maybe we'll see some improvement in
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  Speaker 1: this space.
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  Speaker 3: Cut of course, we certainly hope so. And I mean,
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  Speaker 3: you know, we can't always police can't always be everything
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  Speaker 3: to everyone, but fairly more often than not we are.
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  Speaker 3: And obviously, when we're in those situations with youths in
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  Speaker 3: the middle of the night, you know, if we can't
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  Speaker 3: hand them to somebody to care for them appropriately, it's
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  Speaker 3: left to the police, you know, to continue to care
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  Speaker 3: for them. We can't have that situation. Remember, police, of course,
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  Speaker 3: deal with far more than just youth crime and domestic
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  Speaker 3: and family violence situations. They have a whole range of
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  Speaker 3: other matters they have to deal with on a daily basis.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, that's where the focus has to be
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  Speaker 3: for the new minister and you know, hopefully we get
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  Speaker 3: off on the right foot there.
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  Speaker 2: So Paul, you have mess with the new minister.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we met obviously the day the new portfolios
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  Speaker 3: were announced to the new Minister's credit reached out immediately
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  Speaker 3: organized a meeting and myself and our senior vice president
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  Speaker 3: at least of bail Us attended Parliament House, had a
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  Speaker 3: good long chat with the new minister, outlined our priorities
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  Speaker 3: and obviously you know we've spoken about many of them
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  Speaker 3: around the police attrition, the support and well being, assaults
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  Speaker 3: on police discipline, you know, those real major points that
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  Speaker 3: obviously are affecting our frontline resourcing and police ability to
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  Speaker 3: retain police in the Northern territory. And those points were
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  Speaker 3: put on the table to her. She was very interested
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  Speaker 3: in what we had to say and we'll follow up
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  Speaker 3: that on a regular basis, which we're.
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  Speaker 1: Pleased with may talk us through the situation at the
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  Speaker 1: moment when it does come to know to our attrition
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  Speaker 1: rates and also our police morale. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Look, obviously, you know, I guess in some respects they
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  Speaker 3: can go hand in hand. We've got a very continue
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  Speaker 3: to have a very high attrition rate for a variety
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  Speaker 3: of reasons. We've got somewhere near the vicinity of ten
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  Speaker 3: or eleven percent at the moment. And you're talking about
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  Speaker 3: now one hundred and eighty police in a year leaving
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  Speaker 3: for other opportunities or resigning for other police forces. And
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  Speaker 3: I think you know that itself is a major concern.
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  Speaker 3: We must find out how to slow that up. We
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  Speaker 3: need to retain our police in the Northern Territory and
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  Speaker 3: of course, you know, one way of doing that is
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  Speaker 3: to make sure they're supported appropriately and resourced appropriately. And
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  Speaker 3: you know, when those two things break down, obviously the
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  Speaker 3: police you know, I'm going to put up with that
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  Speaker 3: forever and they look for other opportunities.
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  Speaker 1: We also know that well last week in Parliament, that
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  Speaker 1: legislation around around assault of frontline workers.
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  Speaker 2: It was knocked back.
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  Speaker 1: How are you feeling when it comes to you know,
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  Speaker 1: the high volume of police that we are seeing assaulted,
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  Speaker 1: but the fact that that legislation hasn't changed.
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  Speaker 2: Is there going to be some movement in this space?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that certainly was one of the key aspects we
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  Speaker 3: spoke about and obviously the former minister outlined a review
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  Speaker 3: in relation to assaults on our frontline workers, of course
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  Speaker 3: including police, and that's certainly high on our agenda. Whilst
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  Speaker 3: that legislation was knocked back, you know, we're hopeful the
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  Speaker 3: new minister will obviously look at the stats. I'm in
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  Speaker 3: the stats speak for themselves. We're getting assault assaults on
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  Speaker 3: members just about every day. There's people in court just
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  Speaker 3: about every day. You know, there's there's got to be
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  Speaker 3: some work done in that space and that's certainly something
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  Speaker 3: will continue to lobby for now.
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  Speaker 1: Paul, I don't want to get you involved in a
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  Speaker 1: big political discussion about you know, about ministers and about
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  Speaker 1: the opposition visiting police stations, But in your opinion, is
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  Speaker 1: it helpful for them to actually get into those police
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  Speaker 1: stations and be able to talk to officers and see
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  Speaker 1: what's going on.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, look it is. I mean, we don't want to
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  Speaker 3: see our police and police stations being huge obviously as
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  Speaker 3: political footballs. But you know, certainly for those police, particularly
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  Speaker 3: in the regional remote areas of the Northern Territory, they
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  Speaker 3: are faced with enormous challenges in relation to what goes
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  Speaker 3: on in those communities, the resourcing and of course the
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  Speaker 3: infrastructure as well. It is absolutely vital that you know,
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  Speaker 3: no matter which side of politics you sit on, police
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  Speaker 3: have access to those MLAs so they can obviously see
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  Speaker 3: them if obviously operationally that's appropriate at the time. But
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  Speaker 3: of course what we have seen is a commitment now
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  Speaker 3: from the minister to make sure obviously the opposition leader
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  Speaker 3: can access those facilities. But you know, it's it was
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  Speaker 3: disappointing to hear, but of course we know that sounds
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  Speaker 3: like it won't happen in the future and our police
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  Speaker 3: really do need to have that access when they're visiting
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  Speaker 3: those hard to feel locations out in the regional remote areas.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Paul mchu the Police Association President, it's always good
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  Speaker 1: to catch up with you.
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  Speaker 2: We really appreciate your time this morning.
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  Speaker 3: No worry, thanks Guttie, Thank you,