Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hasluck for that question, and I note his interest in making sure that the streets of his electorate are as safe as possible. He is very aware that since we have come to office we have invested $50 million in our Safer Streets Program, which is money that we have allocated from the proceeds of crime—money that we confiscate from criminals from their illicit activities. When Labor were in office they froze the proceeds of crime account in an attempt to prop up their budget bottom line at the same time taking funding away from our front-line law enforcement officers. They were literally taking money from criminals to prop up their dodgy budget bottom line that they so spectacularly destroyed.

We made a commitment before we came to office that we would unlock this funding and return it to communities to make them safer. Without this decision, $112 million would have been locked away in this account by the financial year 2017-18. Through round 1 of our Safer Streets Program we have allocated $18 million of funding to 150 different locations in 64 different electorates. A lot of that money has funded closed-circuit television cameras, which act as a deterrent to people doing the wrong thing in public spaces—

Ms Rishworth interjecting—

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