Thursday, 4 June 2026

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (04:36): (2569) The action I seek is from the Minister for Police. What I ask him to do is seek an urgent review from the state’s Chief Commissioner of Police of their decision to withdraw PSOs from 119 stations, but in particular – call me selfish – five of the seven stations in my electorate of Ringwood will be stripped of their permanent PSOs – forever gone. What a terrible mistake this government is making in that respect. I will list them because I think it is important that I give the minister every bit of information he can have for when he meets with the chief commissioner and asks him for the review I so urgently seek. He should ask about Blackburn station – that is very important. He should certainly ask about Nunawading station. It is somewhat gobsmacking, to say the least, that they would remove the permanent PSOs from that very busy station. Going further down the line, we have Heatherdale train station. I almost said fire station. It has been a busy week. Minister Shing, you will appreciate that, and so will you, President. I look forward to visiting more fire stations down the track. As we go down the rail track, I go on to Ringwood East train station and of course Heathmont – one of my favourite stations. It is very pretty, and there are a lot of works going on there in terms of the intersection – but that is another story.

What was really important, however, was the service the PSOs provided at those stations, and I say ‘provided’ in the past tense because for quite some months, if not years, this government has systematically dismantled the system that was put in place by the then Baillieu government. What was really critical about that system was it provided certainty not least for women. Time and again I have heard from women right across the electorate and further afield from my electorate, from right across the state in fact, how important it was that they had that peace of mind at night-time – not only for the stations themselves but for their associated car parks and the surrounding areas in some instances – that should they want to get an escort to their car or any other part of the station they could do so with the full knowledge and security that the PSOs were always there.

I am old enough to remember what the transport system looked like in the 1980s and 90s. It was awful. There was seldom, if ever – in fact I will go out on a limb here and say there was never – a train that was not vandalised or graffitied. Mr Luu would remember this, being a former police officer. There was not a single pane of glass in a single carriage that had not been defaced. There was not a seat in one carriage that had not been at least graffitied, removed or vandalised. That was commonplace in the 1980s and the early 90s, before the Baillieu government stepped in – well after the Kennett government – and actually restored order and security to our train lines. This decision by this government comes at a time when violence on the transport system is up 33 per cent. I urge the minister to undertake this review before a serious incident occurs in our train stations. It is a mistake.