Northern Victoria Region
Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (12:27): (1791) My constituency question is for the Minister for Police. It seems that it is not just ambulance response times that are broken in Northern Victoria. Reports this week are suggesting that Wodonga, Wangaratta and smaller surrounding police stations have been decimated with staff shortages; 51Â staff are off work. We are told the shortfall has been driven by stress and COVID restrictions. This is severely impacting the ability of police to respond to incidents in the Wodonga and Wangaratta regions. When towns the size of Wodonga and Wangaratta have only one or even no divisional vans on the road, you know the system is completely broken. These reports back up constituent complaints that have been raised with my office. I have had a number of people reporting, having called police for assistance, being told there was no car or officer to assist, or they find their response times are very, very long. Once again we see the regions are not a priority for this Melbourne government. Minister, what are you doing to address this shortfall in policing numbers in Northern Victoria?