Ms SPENCE (Yuroke) — (12 525) My constituency question is for the Minister for Police. The Andrews Labor government’s recent announcement of a $2 billion investment in police resources has been welcomed across Victoria. The information I seek is how this investment will benefit communities in the Yuroke electorate. Last week the minister announced that 36 additional police will be deployed across the Hume police region from this month, an announcement strongly welcomed by my constituents. With thousands of new police on the way, along with new resources and technology, I look forward to hearing from the minister about how this record investment will benefit Yuroke constituents.

Response:

The Community Safety Statement, released in December 2016 outlines our new $2 billion commitment to keep Victorians safe, prevent harm in our communities and hold perpetrators accountable. It details the Government and Victoria Police’s priorities for keeping Victorians safe and how we’ll achieve this. It publicly holds us to account.

The investment seeks to enhance the powers, tools and capability of Victoria Police to stabilise the crime rate and begin to reduce the level of harm being caused in the community.

Central to the investment is boosting of police numbers right across the state. In total, the Andrews Labor Government is funding 3,135 additional frontline police, including 415 specialist family violence officers, over the next five years to support the police response to crime in our communities. As you are aware, the first of these officers will soon rollout into Melbourne’s growth suburbs last month, with the Hume Local Government Area receiving an additional 36 frontline police.

It is the biggest boost to frontline police in Victoria’s history, and it is crucial to dealing with the growing demand on police services, particularly the challenges of repeat youth offenders, increasing aggravated burglaries, high-volume crime such as car theft, and family violence.

Victoria Police has developed a new and sophisticated staff allocation model, in consultation with The Police Association, so we know how many police are needed and where. It will also help police predict how many will be needed in the future – so they can start planning for them now.

The Community Safety Statement also includes a range of other initiatives that will improve public safety in the Yuroke electorate and the rest of Victoria.

The full deployment of 400 Police Custody Officers has been fast tracked by six months to the end of 2017 to free up more frontline police. Additionally, $10 million is being provided for Youth Crime Prevention grants.

The $2 billion investment also provides for the development of a new Police Assistance Line for non-emergency calls so that Victorians can contact police when they need to and also report crimes online. However, calls for urgent police assistance should always be made to the emergency number “000”.

All 220 highway patrol cars will soon be equipped with Automated Numberplate Recognition Technology, capable of screening 2,500 number plates per hour, to help police take dangerous and unauthorised drivers off our roads.

Police will also have new powers to take DNA samples, without a court order, from people suspected of committing an indictable offence. This will help police to identify repeat criminals, save critical time during investigations and potentially help solve cold cases.

The Government is also focused on disrupting organised crime with new laws to ban cash sales of scrap metal and outlaw drive-by shootings.

And we are providing new aircraft to expand the Victoria Police Air Wing, including three new helicopters and a fixed wing aircraft, and a new training base for specialist police squads to keep Victorians safe.

I look forward to working with the Victorian community and the Chief Commissioner to implement the initiatives funded in the new investment and report back on our progress with the next Community Safety Statement.

Together, we can stabilise the crime rate and begin to turn it around to create a safe and just Victoria.

The Hon Lisa Neville MP
Minister for Police