Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a great pleasure to rise to support this motion. This week is a very special week in the Australian police calendar. The Police Federation of Australia's inaugural Police Week starts this week. It commenced with the Wall to Wall motorcycle ride and will conclude with National Police Remembrance Day. Police Week will also see the inaugural Australian National Police Bravery Awards presented at a formal dinner on 19 September. These awards are very special in that they are selected by police for police, the recipients truly being national heroes.

This year I was again honoured to participate in the Wall to Wall Ride for Remembrance with my daughter Eve. We rode from Canberra after the ceremony and returned from Goulburn to Canberra. The Wall to Wall is a special remembrance motorbike ride where police and their families and friends meet at special places and memorial sites in their jurisdictions and ride to the National Police Memorial, in Canberra. The ride promotes motorcycle safety awareness and raises funds for charity. The main beneficiary of the charity this year is Police Legacy, who do an amazing job looking after the families of those officers who have lost their lives while serving, in the line of duty. And I must pay tribute to Detective Senior Sergeant Vic Kostiuk, who tragically lost his life in Victoria while travelling with his son to the memorial. He gave 40 years of service. He was a great man, and his is a great loss to society.

Police Remembrance Day is a solemn occasion when we commemorate and pay tribute to those police who have lost their lives in the line of duty. On 29 September, around the country, we recall the names of every police officer who has made the ultimate sacrifice protecting and serving their community. The role of a police officer is a very challenging but also very rewarding one. Every day police officers put their lives on the line as they go about their duty, serving their community whilst upholding the highest levels of professionalism, often in very, very difficult circumstances. A police officer never knows what scene they'll be confronted with when they start their shift, and, tragically, some police officers don't make it home. That's why it is so important to remember those people who have lost their life in the line of duty and also to pay respect to those serving us every day. This year I'll attend the Police Remembrance Day service on the Sunshine Coast.

Policing is an incredibly honourable vocation where your function is to help and serve, and, in doing so, it gives you a front row seat to every aspect of life. In Australia, it's a job performed in one of the most peaceful, modern societies on the planet, where the rights and freedoms of individuals are precious and you're charged with protecting life and property and upholding those principles and values. As a former police officer, I understand the difficulties that police encounter every time they put on their uniform. It's a job where, at the beginning of the shift, you have the incredibly weighty task of loading bullets into a weapon—a weapon whose primary purpose is to stop human beings—followed by the even weightier task of then walking out into everyday life with no certainty as to what serious challenges you are going to be asked to solve.

Policing is a job where most members of society are happy to see you. Once they see the blue uniform, they want to have a chat. More often than not they'll strike up that conversation for no particular reason. It's just that they like seeing the police out and about doing their job, walking the beat and keeping the peace. It's a diverse job. At one time, you could be attending an incident of domestic and family violence, where every policing skill that you possess is called upon to resolve a highly charged situation, and, later in that same shift, you may find yourself at a day care centre, sitting on the carpet with the kids, explaining to them why they need to hold Mum's and Dad's hand when they're crossing the road. It truly is a diverse job. It's a job where your own physical and mental wellbeing is regularly placed on the line to help others and where the highs of success are often matched by the lows of tragedy.

Police are expected to be brave. They're expected to be able to perform without fear. They're expected to serve their community without hesitation. I convey my respects to all police, past and present, and commend them for the job that they do.

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