POLICE — RESPONSE TIMES
489. Dr D.J. HONEY to the Minister for Police:
Why have police response times, much
like ambulance response times, deteriorated so much under WA Labor, including
priority response times in Northbridge and Perth, increasing from 2.9 minutes
in 2017 to 13.6 minutes now, a dangerous and unacceptable blowout of 370 per cent?
Mr P.
PAPALIA replied:
With regard to the comparisons that
the member makes, it has always been normal practice for response times to be
done over the entire metropolitan area and the average response time is the
measure that is employed. But that aside, something has happened since 2017
that would have no doubt impacted on police in the same way as it impacted on
every part of Western Australia and every part of the community, and that is a pandemic.
There are significant resources, as I indicated earlier, dedicated to responding
to the challenges associated with the pandemic and I would not be surprised if there were slight changes to responses
as a consequence of that. The truth is that our police are doing an incredible job in extraordinary circumstances doing
two things: fulfilling all the normal practices that they did prior to
the pandemic, and keeping the state safe. More than 400 police officers are
dedicated to Operation Tide. They do all sorts of things. They are not just
sitting in one location monitoring where people are. They visit people to
confirm that they are in locations and they are protecting some of the sites
where people are housed. They are at the
airports and the ports. They are all over the state and they are at the
borders. They are doing an
extraordinarily demanding task all over the state in an incredible, unusual and
challenging time, and they are doing a good job. The more the member
comes into this place or into the media and questions what they are doing and
the degree to which they are providing that service, the more he shames
himself. It is embarrassing.