Thursday, 30 July 2026

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:24): (2656) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Police. The action that I seek is for the minister to specify what funding has been allocated to build the new Wollert police station and confirm when construction will start and when the station will open. Under Jacinta Allan’s Labor government, crime was up. It is up under Ben Carroll as well. But policing is down and Victorians no longer feel safe in their homes. Liberal candidate for Yan Yean Amanda Dow has been out and about in the community talking to people affected by Labor’s crime crisis and hearing frightening stories from victims of crime. Amanda has asked me to raise this issue with the minister, as residents in Donnybrook and Woodstock are concerned about the lack of police presence in their community. Car theft and home invasions are going up, leaving people feeling fearful for their lives and their families. Since 2022 overall crime in the City of Whittlesea has surged by 44 per cent, and burglary and home break-ins have almost doubled, with a massive increase of 88 per cent. But under Labor, police stations in Epping, Mernda and Mill Park are operating with less than 50 per cent of their designated staffing levels, and the Labor government has responded by reducing station opening hours twice in the last six months. Now there is not a single police station open 24/7 in the whole Whittlesea police service area.

Labor’s crime crisis is especially bad for residents of growth suburbs like Donnybrook and Wollert, who suffer more than most because the rollout of new police stations has not kept pace with the rapidly increasing population. Victoria Police put a new Wollert police station in their 2019–21 funding priority list, and the Victorian government purchased land for the station in 2021. But since then the project has stalled. A year ago I asked the minister to confirm when construction would start and finish on the Wollert station, but the minister dodged the question and said the residents in Wollert would get help from Epping police station and others in the area. But Labor has closed Epping station on the weekends and in the evenings. Mill Park station has also had its hours reduced, and Mernda station has been reduced to just two days a week.

The Labor member for Yan Yean Lauren Kathage recently posted to social media to say that the new Wollert police station is now ‘getting ready to go forward towards building’. I have never heard a more vague announcement in my life – getting ready to go forward towards building? Let us be clear, Labor has allocated no money in the 2026–27 budget to build the Wollert station, and there are no police officers to open and run the station if it was built. Residents in Wollert and Donnybrook are desperate for a rapid police response, and they feel abandoned by the Allan Labor government, which has totally failed to fix the staffing crisis and will not properly resource the police service area.

Only the Liberals have a plan to end Labor’s crime crisis and keep Victorians safe. We will recruit 3000 extra Victorian police officers; reopen the more than 40 police stations that have closed or had their hours reduced; hire an additional 200 PSOs to patrol train stations, including Mernda train station; and implement tougher bail and sentencing laws to ensure that criminals face real consequences for their actions.