Tuesday, 13 August 2019

Ballarat forensic police hub

Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (19:15): (883) I direct my adjournment matter to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, and the action I seek is for the minister to join me in Winter Valley in the Wendouree electorate to inspect the new forensic hub and meet the highly trained staff helping to fight crime in our community. The new forensic lab is a great asset for Victoria. It is located in the Ballarat West emergency services precinct next to the $8 million Ballarat West police complex and the $5.8 million Lucas fire station that the minister opened earlier this year.

I look forward to inspecting the new state-of-the-art forensic facility, which will speed up forensic testing and help investigate crime faster in Ballarat and western Victoria. As a result of this new facility and breakthroughs in forensic technology, important scientific work will be completed closer to frontline police units. This is great news for our community, as the time it takes to get the evidence back to police and prosecutors in the region will be significantly reduced as we will no longer need to transport thousands of crime scene exhibits all the way to Melbourne to be examined.

I wish to thank the minister and the Andrews Labor government for investing $11.6 million in Ballarat and Morwell to establish these vital regional forensics labs. I look forward to hearing a response from the minister and hope to see her in Ballarat very soon.