Wednesday, 29 May 2024

Adjournment

Private security

Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (19:00): (681) Tonight I raise an item for the Minister for Police. I am asking the minister to have Victoria Police train private security officers in, and allow them to use, tasers, particularly those who are based in large shopping centres. In my electorate we have what is one of the largest shopping centres in the Southern Hemisphere, Westfield Doncaster. I think all Australians are horrified at what they have seen occurring certainly in Sydney and at other knife attacks which have been prominent over time. We want to make sure that Australians – all of us – are as safe as we can be in all aspects of life, but certainly when Australians are shopping and in large shopping centres.

I am hoping that we would be able to, through the Minister for Police, train private security, registered and overseen by Victoria Police, in the use of tasers, which are nonlethal. All security guards in those shopping centres are trained in first aid, so post the use of the device they can be there to manage the person that has been, possibly, tasered. What I am seeking is for the minister to examine this as a way forward for private security so they can be better equipped to manage some of the threats that we are facing in our society in, sadly, places like my electorate, with Westfield Doncaster, one of the largest shopping centres in Australia. This would provide those private security guards – where properly licensed, where properly looked at and where properly regulated by the police and allowed by government – the ability to eliminate a threat that may be existent and in that way to protect the lives and the safety and security of innocent shoppers, given that we are as a society, sadly, facing a growing incidence of knife crime.