Tuesday, 17 February 2026

 Anthony CARBINES (Ivanhoe – Minister for Police, Minister for Community Safety, Minister for Victims, Minister for Racing) (14:22): I would like to take this opportunity to update the house on the fine work of Victoria Police members across the summer right across our state. In particular we have seen, with Operation Pulse, some 100 disruptive people being booted from our shopping centres across Melbourne and the suburbs, some 109 arrests, 30 weapons seized and 215 offences detected thanks to a $2.4 million program funded to support Victoria Police in the deployment of additional PSOs and police across our shopping centre network at Northland, at Highpoint and at Fountain Gate.

I would also like to pick up on the fact that the redistribution and the redeployment of PSOs across the transport network has seen this intelligence-led model put more police and more PSOs where the crime is in our community to provide confidence and support to communities, to our transport users and to our local businesses as well, who provide great support around those transport hubs.

Can I also acknowledge, as the member for Mordialloc would be aware and the member for Albert Park as well, Operation Summersafe. Police presence has been strong to make sure that people who are out having a great time can do so being supported to do that safely. We have also seen, thanks to Minister Dimopoulos, the great work at our major events and activities, very significant work around our major events, and police presence for all of those. On road safety, a $21 million boost in the budget has seen some 328,000 breath tests and 9000 drug tests done across the summer period.

I would also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge some very significant community events and international visitors last week. We saw police oversee some 15,000 protesters across two events in Melbourne and large community activities, all done with one arrest – a very big contrast to what we saw interstate because of the ideological view of the Institute of Public Affairs and others who think permits are the answer to stop community division.