Reacting to Altona District Hill member Jill Hennessy’s statement that there are over 20% fewer frontline police officers in Wyndham today than there were three years ago, the minister for police and emergency services Kim Wells has said that the Coalition Government is on track to deliver 1,700 additional frontline police by November this year at a cost of $602 million.
According to a media release from the minister’s office: “This [spending] represents the single largest law enforcement recruitment exercise in Victoria’s history. Already there are 1,525 additional police protecting the community than when Labor left office in November 2010. The 2014-15 budget includes the largest crime-fighting budget in history, with output funding of $2.43 billion for Victoria police an increase of 6.7% on the previous year. As Labor should know, the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police is independently responsible for making decisions as to where additional officers are located. As well as having more police at police stations, the Chief Commissioner has allocated additional police to important areas such as:
- Crime Command dealing with a range of crime including family violence, organised crime, outlaw motorcycle gangs and illicit drug manufacture and distribution; and
- Road policing which focuses on helping to drive down the road toll and reduce serious injury on Victorian roads
“The Coalition Government strongly supports the Chief Commissioner in the development of these taskforces.
“If Daniel Andrews and the Labor Party disagrees with these allocations or does not have confidence in Mr Lay, then they should say so,” the media statement said.
Published in The Indian Sun (Indian Newspaper in Melbourne)
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