Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Community Safety, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on this motion regarding National Police Week, and I very much thank the member for McPherson for bringing this motion forward and also for her role previously in Home Affairs, in particular for looking after the Australian Federal Police.

National Police Week started on 17 September, and we also have National Police Remembrance Day on 29 September. I want to pay tribute to the Police Federation of Australia and its Chief Executive Officer, Scott Webber, as well as to all the presidents and secretaries of all the police associations right around Australia for their work. I very much thank them for the tie they provide me as a former Victoria police officer. I also acknowledge Wayne Gatt, the president from Victoria. We worked together a number of years ago providing $5 million of federal funding to BlueHub to help police members in Victoria suffering from the duties they have been involved in—and obviously we want to do this right around the country.

The difference between a police officer and most other occupations is that, when you have a bad day at work, you have a really bad day at work. Anything can happen. You could be on the divisional band, and in one minute it's all quiet and in the next minute you're going to a domestic. The saddest thing is that occasions like Christmas Eve, which you think would be really celebrated occasions, are actually the worst time for family violence and domestics. I really want to thank all the men and women right across the country for the work they do every day—putting on the uniform and going out there to protect others. It is a really, really tough job.

On National Police Remembrance Day we remember the 823 police members who, sadly, have been killed in action—their name, their rank and their jurisdiction. When there is a death in the police force, it really has an overwhelming impact on police members. I didn't know Constable Angela Taylor, who, in 1986, died in the Russell Street bombing, but that's a name I will never forget in honour of her. That was such an awful incident.

In the Walsh Street shootings, in 1988, Constable Steven Tynan, aged 22, and Constable Damian Eyre, aged 20, were murdered. In actual fact, I did know Constable Steven. We were in sister squads when we went through the police academy. He was an incredibly nice guy, someone you realised would be the nicest police officer ever, and he was caught up in this ambush and subsequently murdered. The impact on his family, his colleagues and even the wider police community has been huge.

On 16 August 1998, there were the Silk and Miller murders. Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller died on Cochran's Road. All they were actually doing was a stakeout. I think it was Bandali Debs who ended up being charged with their murders. He opened fire on them. This is one thing sometimes people don't understand when it comes to law enforcement—and this is what the bad guys have made very clear to us in the past: the police have to be bound by rules. They cannot actually just go out there and shoot someone if they think they have a weapon. In actual fact, in a number of these police killings, the police waited to see the response from the criminal. And, sadly, over time so many police officers have lost their lives.

I pay tribute to and thank all the men and women who are out there every day protecting us. They're doing a great job. It has been really tough over the past couple of years, in Victoria in particularly; some of the duties that the rank-and-file police have had to do during the COVID pandemic were really tough. They've always upheld themselves with honour and integrity. My 17 years in the Victorian police force are something I will always be very proud of. I was a constable at Boronia police station and then I went into the organised crime squad and the counterterrorism unit. I thank all my former colleagues, who always SMS me with tips on what the government should be doing. Again, I thank the member for McPherson for bringing this motion forward. We must honour our police members and never forget the families of those officers who have died.

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