By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
As Victoria Police continues to enforce a minimum of two-up police patrols the Shadow Minister has demanded transparency on whether Casey will receive extra cops to walk the beat.
IN PARLIAMENT this month Pakenham-based MP Edward O’Donohue questioned whether additional police will ever be funded in Melbourne’s south-east under the new Government, noting the recent state budget had only committed to additional police in Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula.
“What we see in the first budget is that Labor’s committed to no additional police, save for a handful in Geelong and the Bellarine, and growth areas like Casey, growth areas like Cardinia, which are growing so rapidly, are unlikely to see many additional resources because Government is not making those resources available,” Mr O’Donohue told the News.
“So it has to put pressure on police and when you look at the changed operating environment that also adds additional pressure on police resourcing when members are no longer doing one-up patrols or doing fewer one-up patrols.”
Victoria Police implemented interim security measures after the national terror threat level was raised to high in January, including this year banning single-officer patrols.
In October, while the previous State Government was in power, the Police Association held a community rally in Berwick calling for both major parties to commit to boosting police resources in Casey due to the municipality’s mass population growth.
Police Association Secretary Ron Iddles set the demand for an additional 155 first-response officers for Casey over the next five years, indicating there were just 60 first-response officers for every 100,000 people in the municipality, compared to a state average of 102 for every 100,000.
Mr O’Donohue, who recently helped launch a petition calling for additional police numbers, also demanded transparency on the Government’s custody officer program, demanding a timeline as to when these will be rolled out in Melbourne’s south-east.
“We’re more than 6 months into the term of the government and they haven’t yet trained a single custody officer,” he said.
“ … We don’t have a timetable of when 400 custody officers will be deployed… when Dandenong and other places will actually get the custody officers, when our side of town will actually see any benefit.”
A spokesperson for Police Minister Wade Noonan did not answer whether the resource quota recommended for Casey by the Police Association would be met, only to say the Government would ensure Victoria Police is “appropriately resourced to address the law and order issues facing our community in Casey and across the state.”
The spokesperson also said training of the new custody officers will start “in the 2015/16 financial year, with Victoria Police currently developing an implementation and deployment model.”
