Thursday, 4 August 2022

Mordialloc electorate police

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (17:26): (6473) It is a pleasure to rise this evening and present an adjournment matter to the Minister for Police. The action I seek is for the minister to join me in the electorate of Mordialloc to meet with the dedicated police service people across our local community. The Andrews Labor government backs our Victoria Police members. That is shown in the resources that we have provided and an increase of more than 3100 new police members since we came to government. To add to that, recently in the Victorian 2022–23 state budget we added an extra 500 serving police members.

They have done an extraordinary job across Victoria during really challenging times over the last couple of years of the pandemic, and in our community we have seen their hard work translate into a reduction in crime in the City of Greater Dandenong and Kingston communities. Their proactive work, particularly during some of those warmer months, with the Operation Summersafe program keeping all of the communities that interact with Port Phillip Bay safe from St Kilda through to Frankston, shows that active, preventative and community-supported and -minded approach to community policing.

I had the great opportunity of joining members of the Greater Dandenong police community recently at a forum in Keysborough South where we came together with residents to hear their thoughts, views, suggestions and concerns. It was a really informative and important meeting at the Tatterson Park reserve to hear all of the different challenges that Victoria Police are facing—changes in technology that we need to support them in as well—and how modern policing is undertaken. It was an open and transparent discussion, and we are indebted for their work and connection with our community.

I would really like the Minister for Police, as we head towards national Police Week in September, to come with me to the Mordialloc electorate and meet with members of the Victoria Police family to hear their thoughts and views on how we can improve the service to our local community, the challenges that we are facing and how we can support them into the future.