CABRAMATTA TO GET 100 MORE POLICE

One hundred extra police are expected to be moved into Sydney's south-west
to tackle drug-related lawlessness when the Carr Government reverses the
police chief's downgrading of Cabramatta police station.

Eighteen months after Mr Peter Ryan reduced Cabramatta's claim on senior
police positions, the Premier is expected within three weeks to add the
extra police to the Greater Hume command.

Mr Carr yesterday foreshadowed extra powers for Cabramatta police. The
Government has already given them the right to disperse groups of three or
more, to search for knives and, as of yesterday, to take from the streets
drug-affected people in the same way police can remove disorderly drunks.

Despite the new law's debut on the statute books yesterday, there was
confusion over whether police could use it before an inter-agency protocol
defines its operation. "Protocols are still being worked on to use this new
power," a spokeswoman for the Police Minister, Mr Whelan, confirmed.

Authorities have had nine months to get the protocol right since Parliament
approved the Intoxicated Persons Act on June 14.

Mr Carr said the new law was a recommendation of the 1999 Drug Summit and
"an addition to police powers, not an answer to the entrenched problems
we've got in Cabramatta".

Its application was statewide, not "crafted" for Cabramatta. "It's an extra
option for police but I'll be making an announcement shortly about a
significant addition to police powers relevant to Cabramatta," he said.

The Government's drug policy unit director, Mr Geoff Barnden, told a
parliamentary inquiry this week that the new law "may present some new
opportunities for the police in Cabramatta".

Last May, Mr Whelan's parliamentary secretary, Mr Bryce Gaudry, told
Parliament: "The protocols should assist police in better managing the
immediate needs of intoxicated or drug-affected people in a public place by
providing immediate crisis accommodation and support."

Under the new law, police can search and move drug-affected people to such
places as rehabilitation centres, police stations and juvenile detention
centres.

Police were advised yesterday the new law had begun and that they could
begin exercising their expanded powers.

Greater Hume's commander, Assistant Commissioner Clive Small, said
Cabramatta police would be the first trained in using the new law. This
would begin within two weeks.

Cabramatta's police station was downgraded from "category one" to "category
two" by Mr Ryan in September 1999. The top-level grading uses higher pay
scales to attract police to more difficult commands, particularly senior
ranks. A recommendation from Mr Small to upgrade the station is before Mr Ryan.

On February 24 last year, Mr Ryan justified the downgrading by saying:
"We've reclaimed the streets in Cabramatta to a large extent." The suburb
was "no longer regarded as dangerous".

It has since been revealed that Cabramatta's police drug detection rate
fell by up to 50 per cent in the two years to last November.

The Opposition spokesman on police, Mr Andrew Tink, said the Premier had
become the "de facto police minister", stepping in and taking control of
the Cabramatta statement.