Constituency questions
Eastern Victoria Region
Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (12:38): (132) My constituency question is for the Minister for Crime Prevention, and it relates to an increase in crime in the Mornington, Mount Eliza and Mount Martha areas. Craig Vanstone owns a fantastic cafe down at Mount Eliza. In the early hours of 17 April Craig’s cafe and 12 other small businesses were broken into and vandalised, and cash was stolen from them. Traders are highly anxious about the safety and security of not only their own staff but their customers as well. With retail crime escalating over the past 12 months, Craig attributes soaring costs of living to some of this additional crime. He says – and he has spoken with me – people are struggling to get money by any means to fund their lives. He and other retailers are calling for additional CCTV, so will you work with the Mornington Peninsula retail sector to fund additional CCTV to deter crime activity in that area?