Thursday, 26 May 2022

Police resources

Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (14:15): My question is to the Premier. Yesterday the Police Association Victoria (TPA) confirmed that Victoria Police officers are now being forced to transport people to hospital because of the government’s failure to fix the ambulance crisis, a move that is now removing police from important frontline duties. Does the Premier accept that his failure to fix this crisis is now spreading to a crisis that is impacting on other essential services like the police?

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (14:15): No, I do not accept that conclusion because it is not based in fact. It is not based in fact.

Members interjecting.

Mr ANDREWS: Well, if you have a close look at what the TPA but also what police command has said—the chief commissioner today—if you look at the data, section 351 of the Mental Health Act 2014, those people who need, because they are a risk to themselves or others, to be transported, there has been no change in practice, no change in practice at all. The most recent data that I am briefed on comparing calendar year 2021 to 2020 for those sorts of transports, those types of mental health clients, there has been a 0.1 per cent increase in those numbers of incidents—0.1 of 1 per cent.

Members interjecting.

Mr ANDREWS: Oh, got no resources. If you want to talk about impinging on the performance of Victoria Police, how about cutting their budget? That will do wonders for crime. That will do wonders for safety. That will do wonders, won’t it? This mob has never delivered a police officer that was not funded by a Labor government, that is the fact of it. If you talk to me about police numbers, I am happy to say to the member for Gembrook that I will refer you to the statements made by the TPA that make it very, very clear: 502 general duty officers, 50 PSOs, adding to the record recruitment that we have already delivered previously—

Members interjecting.

Mr ANDREWS: Oh, a third of what they were. Well, wouldn’t you know about being a third of what people ask for? That sums you up, mate. You are about a third of what people ask for.

Ms Staley: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, the Speaker has previously ruled frequently and has upheld previous rulings from the Chair that question time is not an opportunity to attack the opposition and I ask you to stop the Premier from doing so.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I ask the Premier to come back to answering the question.

Mr ANDREWS: Under extreme provocation. I was accused of jumping on the hook over here. Seafood analogies have worked so well for you for so very long. Do you catch lobsters with hooks, Deputy Speaker? I am not sure.

Members interjecting.

Mr ANDREWS: Yes, baskets and brown paper bags. That is what you catch. Let us be very clear, I was asked about the police. I was asked about the police and a particular cohort of Victorians who need support. I have answered that part of the question, and I am asked about police. The budget provides further support for Victoria Police in record terms, welcomed and acknowledged as ‘funding police properly’. That is what the TPA said. That is what the chief commissioner knows. What Victorians know is there will always be more to be done—always—and that is why we will, if given the great honour of delivering the budget next year, give a further boost to Victoria Police, because unlike some we do not cut Victoria Police budgets.

Mr Richardson interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Mordialloc can leave the chamber for 1 hour.

Member for Mordialloc withdrew from chamber.

Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (14:20): It appears that the Victorian police association do not have the same view as the Premier, when Wayne Gatt has stated, ‘increasingly … police are becoming the primary call to situations that otherwise wouldn’t attract a police response’ and that this can take hours and hours. How is Victoria Police being called as the sole respondents to medical events the right use of police resources?

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (14:20): Similar matters were put to the chief commissioner today, and he has made it very clear that there has been no change to arrangements—

Members interjecting.

Mr ANDREWS: Well, the issue of being the sole dispatch is wrong—is simply wrong—and that is not me saying it, that is what the chief commissioner is making very, very clear. In any event—and I am not quite sure whether the opposition will flip-flop on recommendation 10 of the royal commission into mental health, they have flip-flopped on a few others—recommendation 10 calls for a health response, not a law and order response, and we are wasting no time in delivering that important reform. The police association and police command and Ambulance Victoria and every single police officer and ambulance paramedic will be part of that. They already are part of that, and I thank them for their work in extraordinarily difficult times. That reform does take time. It also takes consistency, and that is exactly what we are delivering when it comes to mental health reform.