Wednesday, 17 August 2022

 Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (12:24): My question is for the minister representing the Minister for Police. The Firearms Act 1996 requires security guards to store their firearms at a location belonging to the security company they work for. The act does not provide any mechanism to allow an exception to this, but it seems the licensing and regulation division have, on their own authority, invented a permit that allows at-home storage for selected security guards. We are told that Senior Sergeant Armstrong has been approving these permits for friends of LRD, former police officers and others with connections. This is part of a broader pattern of LRD acting outside their authority under Senior Sergeant Armstrong, who has been running LRD far longer than VicPol’s anti-corruption policy allows. To be clear, I think it would be a good reform to allow security guards to take their firearms home, but it is the Parliament’s role to make the laws, not LRD’s. Minister, why are LRD issuing these permits outside their powers under the Firearms Act? LRD appears to wield extraordinary powers with little or no oversight.

 Ms TIERNEY (Western Victoria—Minister for Training and Skills, Minister for Higher Education, Minister for Agriculture) (12:25): This is another example of Mr Quilty making very serious allegations and using parliamentary privilege. The matter will be referred to the Minister for Police.

 Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (12:25): Thank you, Minister. We have seen special treatment for clubs with close connections to LRD leadership and allegations of misconduct and illegal behaviour brought to Armstrong’s attention by other officers ignored and swept under the rug. We know that the firearms database has lost track of many thousands of firearms and that many firearms have been misplaced in police custody. We have seen LRD officers sign off on affidavits that attest the missing seized firearms were of no value and were destroyed. We know that almost all complaints to IBAC are referred back to the police, who are expected to investigate themselves, like the case we heard about last week where tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition went missing while in police custody. Police investigated themselves and found nothing wrong. Now we have illegal take-home permits issued by LRD. There is evidence. I have seen documents and emails and we have heard witnesses give account after account of misconduct and improper behaviour, but there seems to be no action. Minister, when will we see a real audit and clean-up of the licensing and regulation division?

 Ms TIERNEY (Western Victoria—Minister for Training and Skills, Minister for Higher Education, Minister for Agriculture) (12:26): Again, similar to my response to the substantive, this will be referred to the Minister for Police.