CORONAVIRUS —
POLICE RESOURCES
622. Mr A. KRSTICEVIC to the Premier:
I
refer to the 12 of 15 police districts that are understrength and the 400
police officers being taken off the front line to fight COVID-19. Will
the Premier immediately commit to a substantial increase in police numbers to
address violence in our communities, including the sickening assaults against
our elderly?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
As
I said in answer to an earlier question, obviously the recent assault upon Mr
Lombardi and his death was shocking. We all feel sickened by what took
place and we feel for his family and friends. Since we have come to government,
we put in place 300 additional police officers and significant budget repair
efforts to improve the state's budget position. The government will
make further decisions about these matters during the course of this term, but
I want to make one other point: we have had to use the resources of government
to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Look at what is happening in Victoria, the
United States or other parts of the world. Reports now coming out of Indonesia,
India and Papua New Guinea and other parts of the world—parts of Africa—are
terrible, so of course we will use the resources of government to ensure that
we do everything we can to prevent that from happening here. Police are part of
the resources of government. Obviously, the police have done a wonderful job
over this period. I have been so impressed by the police commissioner, the
acting police commissioner and individual police officers for the job they have
done over this period. It is not often a very—how would I put it—glamourous
job. Out on the border at Eucla or Kununurra, which I have been to visit, or
out at the airport or wherever it might be, it is not a glamourous job. It is a
time-consuming, difficult job, often dealing with difficult people. It has not
been easy, but I appreciate the efforts of our police. At this point in time we
have had a very successful result in now having 150 days without the virus in Western
Australia. I attribute it to those sorts of measures that we put in place in conjunction with our police. Rather than
bemoaning our police participating in this, I think we should celebrate the
fact that our police have done such a great job in conjunction with our community
to prevent the spread of a deadly virus throughout our state.