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Fears of creeping civilianisation of the police force have been partly allayed by changes to a major bill which will require Parliament to sign off on new civilian roles within the police.
The Policing Bill creates a list of jobs in which civilians take specialised roles along with the protections and powers that only police currently have to do those jobs, including the power to arrest.
The roles are restricted to police jailers, escorts, police guards, specialist crime investigators and traffic enforcement police but the initial bill allowed the Police Minister to easily change the list.
The select committee report on the bill yesterday included a new requirement for changes to the "authorised officers" list to be approved by legislation in Parliament or they would expire after six to 18 months.
The change followed concerns from Police Association head Greg O'Connor and civil liberties advocate Tony Ellis that allowing the minister to change the list would lead to increasing civilianisation of the police force and give narrowly trained staff too much power.
In its report, the committee said it was concerned the change would result in non-police staff doing much of the routine police work the public expected constables to do.
"Since policing relies on public confidence, we want to ensure parliamentary oversight of any changes to policing roles."
Yesterday Mr O'Connor said some form of check from Parliament was necessary to ensure "piecemeal" decisions did not have more wide spread effects.
"It is not something that should be arbitrarily done at the flick of a pen. We want to avoid the American situation of having a plethora of people who all have different powers.
"This will ensure organisations like ours have the ability to ensure Parliament understands the ramifications of any short term bureaucratic decisions."
Mr O'Connor said widening the list of civilian staff in specialist positions could put public safety at risk because they would not be trained to deal with the same wide range of situations as sworn police. It would also cause public confusion about the difference between police and civilian powers.
Civilian roles in the police have traditionally been reserved for administrative jobs and the change was partly to provide more flexibility and free up sworn police. It was also required for the set-up of the Organised Crime Agency, which requires specialist forensic accountants of the Serious Fraud Office who do not have traditional police training.
The Policing Bill revamps and updates the old 1958 Act by modernising its employment structure and addressing modern police powers and practices. It also puts the new Code of Conduct into law.
Other changes made by the select committee include requiring police elected to local councils to stand down as police officers. Currently, only police elected to Parliament have to do so.
Although the National Party members on the committee objected to extending the restriction from general elections to local body elections, the majority said several submitters were concerned law enforcers also working on bodies which passed by-laws.
It said while there must be a balance between an individual's right to hold political views and the importance of police being seen as independent, there was a need for a "bright line" rule.
Mr O'Connor said while the Association understood the restrictions for general elections, to apply the same rule for local body election effectively isolated police from their local communities and would restrict many from standing. He said conflicts of interest had been managed in the past and police were already subject to a code of conduct.
