TOP COP WARNS OF FALLING NUMBERS

AUSTRALIA'S top cop has questioned the capacity of his depleted force to
combat violence, drugs and organised crime.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer said his force had only
been able to recruit 25 to 30 new officers a year for several years.

"In the four-and-a-half-years of my commissionership, the strength of the
AFP has fallen by some 400, a fact which I deeply regret," Mr Palmer said.

He said the increase in home invasions, drug and alcohol abuse and the
growing use of dangerous weapons such as knives presented significant
problems for governments and police.

Problems within the AFP are not confined to violent crime and just three
weeks ago the force's entire computer crime team resigned to join the
private sector.

The Opposition has accused the Government of cutting $100 million from the
AFP budget in three years.

Mr Palmer told AFP graduates the force would be operating in a more
uncertain global environment with an explosion of organised crime in Asia
and Russia.

"In one critically important Asian country, banks are reputed to have
accumulated unredeemable loans amounting to more that $US1 trillion, of
which, according to reports, some 40 percent was loans to groups or
corporations with organised criminal connections," he said.

In Russia, according to Mr Palmer, 30 percent of organised crime income was
spent on bribing government officials.

AFP Association spokesman Jason Burns welcomed the Commissioner's comments.

Mr Burns said serious crime was not being investigated because of a lack of
resources.

"We have no resources to investigate what is referred to us," Mr Burns said.

The Commissioner's sobering assessment comes as the Government still
refuses to release a damaging report into the AFP.

It is understood the report by former senior bureaucrat Tony Ayers points
to under funding and poor management within the force.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski