Mr NORTHE (Morwell) — I am pleased to rise to speak on this very good matter of public importance submitted by the member for South Barwon. It was interesting to hear the Minister for Police’s contribution. A number of factual inconsistencies at best, Deputy Speaker, is how I would describe the minister’s contribution. The member for South Barwon in the matter of public importance has raised in part some of the concerns of our community with rising crime rates across our state.
I might say from a local perspective it is certainly one of the key issues within the Morwell electorate and indeed within Latrobe City, having had conversations with a number of people about what is important to them. They read the papers and the media and listen to what is occurring in the suburbs of Melbourne with respect to carjackings, home invasions and so forth. Those concerns certainly extend to regional areas of Victoria as well. Whilst they might not necessarily be publicised locally as well as they are in the metropolitan media, these types of incidents are real, they are occurring in regional Victoria as well, and they are a significant concern for our community.
Even if one has a look at the crime statistics for the Latrobe region, they are really quite appalling. I will say up-front that I have the utmost respect and admiration for our police officers. They do a remarkable job in very difficult circumstances. Indeed many of my friends are in the force, and I well understand some of the challenges and issues that they face. When you have a look at the Latrobe crime statistics, you see that in March 2014 there was a total of 10 641 criminal offences within the region. That is substantial by anybody’s measure, but they have now risen in the short space of two years to 13 523. We have had nearly 3000 additional criminal offences occur within the Latrobe region in that period of time.
When you go through the types of offences, you see that some of them are really quite alarming. In relation to assault and related offences, in 2012 there were 1141 offences; that has now grown to 1554. Yes, I concede that some of those offences might be related to family violence — and that is certainly a topic of conversation, something that needs addressing — but there are a whole range of other offences that have occurred within the Latrobe municipality. These are very serious offences, and unfortunately we have seen a substantial increase. From 2015 to 2016 homicide and related offences were up by 150 per cent. Assault and related offences from last year to this year are up by 13 per cent. Sexual offences are up by 5 per cent. We have got burglary and break and enter offences up by 41 per cent. Theft is up by 21.6 per cent, and I can attest unfortunately to being one of the victims of that particular crime. It is just such a sickening feeling to know that you have had a theft occur at your home. It really does leave a sour taste in your mouth. When I was growing up, and I am sure for many members of the Parliament when they were growing up, theft and those types of offences were frowned upon — it was just seen as a disgusting offence — but we seem to take it with a grain of salt these days unfortunately. Anyway, I digress! In relation to the cultivation and manufacture of drugs, and drug use and possession we have seen a significant escalation as well as public nuisance offences and others.
Unfortunately it is hard to come into this place and convey these types of statistics, but that is what we are contending with. As the member for South Barwon quite rightly said, we need to have additional police resources available to us on the front line to deal with these particular issues. Having police stations open is part of that. In recent times we have had a situation at the Boolarra police station, which is in a small community, where a long-serving police officer, Gary Mills, retired. That police station sat closed for a long period of time, and the community out there certainly conveyed their concerns and anger and made sure that all and sundry were aware that they wanted Gary replaced. An article in the Latrobe Valley Express at the time states:
A sign on the Boolarra police station door offers other local station numbers for assistance.
Boolarra community development group member Rob Herni said there had been a rise in crime in the area over the past six months including vandalism, breaking and entering and hoon behaviour.
He said the announcement was also an opportunity to recognise the work of Gary.
Gary kept the community up to date with what was happening in the district. There were further comments quoted in the article, including one by Lara post office owner Gwenda Pither, who said that she was grateful Boolarra had ‘minimal crime’ but would like to see a daily police presence. The article states:
She said while she could not speak for the whole town, some residents had said they missed being able to ‘go to the police station or talk to a policeman’.
Ms Pither said she hoped the town would not be without a permanent officer in the long term.
I am glad to report that eventually Gary’s position was filled, but as the member for South Barwon articulated in his matter of public importance, there are a number of police stations across the state that have either had their hours reduced or have simply been closed, and that is not good enough.
I well remember a conversation I had in 2010 with a long-serving, high-ranking police officer at the Traralgon police station. He said to me that they were desperate for additional resources. At that particular point in time the Traralgon police station had some 35 positions vacant, which is absolutely staggering. His suggestion was that the government of the day had not done enough to make sure that our police stations in the Latrobe region were adequately resourced. When we explored it a bit further we found that the Morwell police station, the Moe police station and indeed the Churchill police station — which was not a 24/7 police station — were all well and truly under-resourced. The police at the time were dealing with some really difficult circumstances, particularly around some of the nightclub precincts within our community, and I know those circumstances took a toll on a lot of police officers during that time.
If we fast forward to where we are today, those police stations are now reasonably satisfactorily resourced, and that is because when we were in government there was an allocation of some 65 police officers to those four police stations. Now those 24/7 police stations at Traralgon, Morwell and Moe have had their vacancies filled, and we were able to extend the hours of the Churchill police station to more acceptable hours for that community. But the fact is, as I have relayed in the statistics, there is still a surge in crime. One of the things we can do to counteract that is make sure that we have more and more police officers for our community.
The minister in her contribution talked about youth unemployment and youth and the challenges that we have here. I can certainly tell the minister that the government is not helping our community in the Latrobe and wider Gippsland region, where we have had a number of employment programs, regional economic development programs and youth pathway programs scrapped. We have also seen a rise in youth unemployment, which unfortunately does contribute to the some of these crime statistics.
The best thing the minister could do would be to talk to her colleagues and reinstate some of those important specific programs for the Latrobe community. I have been a member of the Traralgon safety committee and have seen local communities come up with local initiatives to address crime. It has been a great success, and the police, business owners, council and the community are all part of that.
It is important that we support the police in what they do and that we support local initiatives, such as those safety committees, and implement programs to deter crime in this state. Nonetheless, the member for South Barwon has hit the nail on the head with his matter of public importance. It is a massive concern, right across the Victorian community, and we call upon the Andrews government to improve the situation that we have at the moment.
