POLICE — OPERATION HEAT SHIELD
818. Mr S.N. AUBREY to the Minister for Police:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's commitment to keeping the community safe. Can the minister
update the house on how the government is supporting the WA Police Force over
the summer months, particularly around busy entertainment precincts such as Scarborough?
Mr P. PAPALIA replied:
I thank the member for the
question. Scarborough will obviously be a key location for a lot of activity
over summer and will be a beneficiary of the
announcement we made on Sunday, which was about the third in a series of Heat
Shield operations, which will bring significant extra resourcing through
funding to police to enable some 38 500
extra policing hours between December and the end of March. It was demonstrated
to be effective in the last two versions in the last couple of years.
This will enable police the flexibility to employ all manner of resources, including people from the mounted unit, the canine
unit and police on bikes and in cars and, of course, police officers on
the beat. They will be wherever they are required to confront additional
activity in the summer months in entertainment precincts; of course, that will
be a focus, so the member for Scarborough will be happy to hear that, as will
the members for Hillarys, Fremantle and other places around the state where
there is a lot of activity. It will also focus on high-volume crime such as
burglaries and theft. We saw last year that this additional support was employed in that fashion right across the state in
all police districts and resulted in some really significant prosecutions
of individuals who do a lot of harm—the sort of thing that people
really hate and find very annoying.
It is great to confirm this third
version of Operation Heat Shield. It is worth about $3.5 million in additional
budget for the police. It also comes on top
of an increase in numbers in the Northbridge–Perth police district by
100 additional officers, which has already happened as a result of the
biggest expansion of WA Police Force numbers in the history of the state in any four-year term. There will be 950 police
above attrition over the next three years. Our target to achieve that is
going really well. I was at another graduation last Thursday and will be at
another one next month and another one the month after. They come almost
constantly now. It is wonderful to see Western Australians, particularly young Western Australians, stepping
forward to serve their state at this challenging time. It is wonderful that they are contributing. They are stepping up
and being positive in the face of challenge. It would be nice to witness
a little bit of that sentiment from the other side of the house.