Thursday, 2 April 2026

 Michael O’BRIEN (Malvern) (17:25): (1633) My adjournment matter is directed to the Minister for Police. The action I seek is for the minister to increase resources to Victoria Police so as to enable the reopening of the Malvern police station 24 hours a day and the maintenance of protective services officers on every train station in the Malvern electorate. It was a bit over two years ago that the member for Bendigo East took over as Premier, so when I tell the house about what has happened to crime in my community during that time, it is on the Premier. The Premier has made the decisions, and she is accountable for what has occurred. The first point to note is that just two months after the Premier was sworn into that role, in late 2023, we started to see police station operating hours being rolled back at 43 stations across Victoria. Malvern police station used to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our local police station being open all the time gave a great sense of comfort to my community, but under this Premier Malvern police station is now closed at least 16 hours a day. It only opens from 10 am to 6 pm, which is great if criminals only work during business hours, but they do not. Malvern residents no longer have a safe haven where they can go in the middle of the night if they are scared, if they are fleeing family violence or if they are being followed on the road.

Let us examine what has happened to crime in my area since Labor closed the Malvern police station 16 hours a day. We have seen aggravated burglaries in the Malvern electorate skyrocket by 94.5 per cent between 2023 and 2025. The independent Crime Statistics Agency reported 110 aggravated burglaries in Malvern in 2023 and 214 of them in 2025. When you cut police, you increase crime – it is that simple. For the Armadale postcode agg burgs went from six to 28, Malvern postcode saw a doubling from 25 to 50, Malvern East went from 39 agg burgs in 2023 to 88 in 2025 – a 125 per cent increase. It is not just aggravated burglaries on the rise. Theft of motor vehicles has increased by 112 per cent in my electorate in the two years since the Premier was appointed and the Malvern police station closed 16 hours a day.

To add insult to injury, the Allan Labor government is stripping the protective services officers from the train stations in my community. We have 11 stations in my area across two train lines. We need PSOs patrolling these stations at night to keep commuters safe, but Labor would rather take away the PSOs from my community to fill holes caused by the 1500 vacancies in Victoria Police. Well, my constituents are sick of paying for Labor’s poor economic management, bad decisions and crime crisis. It is time this government got its priorities right. That means properly resourcing police, that means reopening Malvern police station 24/7 and that means hands off the PSOs on our local train stations.