The Police Service Amendment Act 1992 was an Act

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

 of the Parliament of New South Wales

Parliament of New South Wales

The Parliament of New South Wales, located in Parliament House on Macquarie Street, Sydney, is the main legislative body in the Australian state of New South Wales . It is a bicameral parliament elected by the people of the state in general elections. The parliament shares law making powers with...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, establishing a trial of volunteer police officers in the New South Wales Police Service. Introduced to the Parliament by the Liberal Government

Liberal Party of Australia

The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

, the Act was strongly opposed by the Labor Opposition

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 and the New South Wales Police Association

New South Wales Police Association

The Police Association of New South Wales was formed in 1922 and is the industrial association representing over 99 percent of the sworn police officers in the State of New South Wales, Australia. The current president of the association is Scott Weber....

.

The Act was automatically repealed by virtue of a sunset clause on 31 December 1994.

Background

The United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 have long histories of allowing volunteers to serve on a part-time basis alongside regular constables in their special constabularies

Special Constabulary

The Special Constabulary is the part-time volunteer section of a statutory police force in the United Kingdom or some Crown dependencies. Its officers are known as Special Constables or informally as Specials.Every United Kingdom territorial police force has a special constabulary except the...

 and auxiliary constabularies

Auxiliary Constable

Auxiliary Constables or Reserve Constables are unpaid citizens who volunteer their time and skills to a police force. They are uniformed, unarmed members who performs a similar role to their UK counterpart in the Special Constabulary...

 respectively. The intention of the Police Service (Volunteer Police) Amendment Act 1992 was to adapt the principle of voluntary part-time police service for New South Wales.

The volunteer police

The Act established the position of 'police volunteer' within the Police Service and collected these volunteers under the title 'the volunteer police'. The Commissioner of Police was given the powers to appoint, discipline and dismiss police volunteers and also to determine their functions, with the requirement that police volunteers be under the supervision of police officers at all times.

Appointment as a police volunteer conferred on a person the same powers and privileges of a special constable

Special constable

A Special Constable is a law enforcement officer who is not a regular member of a police force. Some like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police carry the same law enforcement powers as regular members, but are employed in specific roles, such as explosive disposal technicians, court security, campus...

 appointed under the Police (Special Provisions) Act 1901, which gave the police volunteer the same powers as a constable employed by the Police Service. However, while the Commissioner could determine what weapons were to be carried by police volunteers, the Act specifically prohibited them carrying or using firearms.

Debate

There was much parliamentary debate on the Act. When the Opposition called a division

Division (vote)

In parliamentary procedure, a division of the assembly is a voting method in which the members of the assembly take a rising vote or go to different parts of the chamber, literally dividing into groups indicating a vote in favour of or in opposition to a motion on the floor...

, the vote was split evenly and the Speaker

Speaker (politics)

The term speaker is a title often given to the presiding officer of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body. The speaker's official role is to moderate debate, make rulings on procedure, announce the results of votes, and the like. The speaker decides who may speak and has the...

 of the Legislative Assembly used his casting vote

Casting vote

A casting vote is a vote given to the presiding officer of a council or legislative body to resolve a deadlock and which can be exercised only when such a deadlock exists...

 to resolve the matter in the affirmative.

Support

Supporters of the Act - members of the Liberals and the Democrats

Australian Democrats

The Australian Democrats is an Australian political party espousing a socially liberal ideology. It was formed in 1977, by a merger of the Australia Party and the New LM, after principals of those minor parties secured the commitment of former Liberal minister Don Chipp, as a high profile leader...

 - argued that volunteer police would build upon the community policing practices implemented by the Government, would augment police in the event of an emergency, and would allow members of the public to contribute to a cause which they felt strongly about.

Opposition

The Labor Opposition, backed by the principal unions in the Police Service - the New South Wales Police Association, the Commissioned Police Officers Association of New South Wales, and the Public Service Association - was opposed to the Act. Arguments against the Act revolved around concerns that police volunteers would not be sufficiently trained, experienced or equipped for police work, and that the Government intended on tricking the public into thinking there were more police officers on the streets than was actually the case.

Successor scheme

In 1995, the NSW Police Service introduced a scheme called Volunteers in Policing which allows community members to assist police by performing certain non-core police duties. Such duties are limited to community engagement and basic administrative tasks, with no law enforcement responsibilities or powers granted to volunteers.

See Also: Police Support Volunteer

Police Support Volunteer

Police Support Volunteer is a voluntary role within the ranks of British Police Forces that involves civilian and mainly office based duties. PSV schemes became popular after the millennium when forces were expanding and needed to be more connected to the community...

External links

• NSW Parliamentary Counsel's Office - Full text of the Act.
• NSW Parliament Hansard - Parliamentary debate records relating to the Act.
• Volunteers in Policing - The current scheme whereby volunteers can perform non-policing functions within the Police Force.