CHILD PROTECTION —
CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE — ROEBOURNE
1018. Hon NICK GOIRAN to the minister representing the
Minister for Police:
I refer to the answer to my question
without notice 978 on 17 October 2018 in which the minister informed the house
that the minister was not in a position to advise what figures the previous
Commissioner of Police provided to the media on or before 1 August 2017 about
the number of victims identified during Operation Fledermaus.
(1) Is the minister or any of her staff aware of the
article on PerthNow by Gabrielle Knowles of 1 August 2017 in which the
then police commissioner is quoted as saying, ''a staggering 184 child
victims of sexual abuse have been identified''?
(2) Has the minister on multiple
occasions told the house that there were 50 victims?
(3) Given that
both the minister and the then police commissioner would have received such
information from the Western Australia Police Force, how can this massive
variation be explained?
(4) Further to
(3), if the minister does not know, will they direct that an investigation be
undertaken to uncover the truth behind this massive discrepancy in information?
(5) If no to (4),
is this because the minister considers this a matter of misconduct and has
already referred the matter to the Corruption and Crime Commission?
Hon
STEPHEN DAWSON replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of this question. The following information has been provided to me
by the Minister for Police.
(1)–(2) Yes.
(3) I have
provided information to the Parliament based on information provided by the Western
Australia Police Force. There are a number of variables which may explain the
difference, including how specifically the location is defined, how ''victim''
is defined and whether the number of individual victims or offences are
counted.
(4)–(5) Not applicable.