Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this very important motion, and I want to acknowledge the member for Tangney and a great speech from the heart. I'm not too sure of members on the opposite side, but I also want to acknowledge members on our side of the chamber: the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Wide Bay, the member for Cowper and the member for La Trobe—and to any others that I may have missed, I apologise—for their services to policing in this country. It's a tough job. I've never served as a police officer, but I have a nephew that's currently serving. I want to pass on my acknowledgement and thanks for the great work that they do. Our police personnel are exceptional, but their work is essential.

I recently visited the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation in Brisbane as part of my continuing work to keep kids safe, particularly with the emerging threats posed by advancing technology. The extent of the risks faced by vulnerable Australians, and particularly kids, highlights the crucial role police and law enforcement have to play in making our communities safer. But I want to come at this from a slightly different angle. We talk about mental health a lot in this place. We talk about mental health particularly in relation to veterans, and that's very important. But from my experience as an ex-barrister and in my dealings with police officers, I know that a lot of police officers and emergency service personnel suffer terribly from PTSD. The member for Tangney touched on this a moment ago from his own personal experience.

It's right that we acknowledge our veterans from the Defence Force and the work that they do and the risks that they run. But the average Australian emergency service personnel will more than likely see far more death and carnage than many of our serving personnel will see, especially in peacetime. And yet we so very rarely talk about the mental health of our emergency service personnel, particularly our police. These are the men and women who will come out to your house when there is a call-out in relation to a domestic violence dispute, when the house is being burgled, when there is an accident on the highway—there are all sorts of reasons why we pick up that phone and ring triple 0. They don't sit and draw lots as to who's going to go out. They do it. They do it because of a sense of duty, and, by and large, they do it extremely well.

This country is indebted to our police services, both at state and territory level and at federal level, and it's important that we have this conversation around police wellbeing. That's why I was very proud to advocate for and see Fortem share in $11½ million in response to the Black Summer bushfires. And, again, I was delighted that an additional $1.4 million was provided in the 2022-23 federal budget for Fortem Australia, the organisation that was launched to do for law enforcement and emergency service workers what Soldier On has done for our defence personnel. And it is extraordinary work. A project in my electorate which I've been proud to support and in part secure is the National PTSD Research Centre, to be housed in my electorate, thanks to $8.3 million secured under the coalition. The centre is the first of its kind in this country. It deals with the research and treatment of emergency service personnel and defence personnel who suffer from PTSD.

I want to give a big shout-out to the University of the Sunshine Coast team for their leadership in this sector. They are doing tremendous work with the Thompson Institute, and I salute them. Their work is making a difference right across the country, and I couldn't be prouder of our coalition for providing, when we were in government, in excess of $20 million to the Thompson Institute for this sort of research. Thanks to their efforts, ably supported by the former coalition government, law enforcement agencies seized 39 tonnes of drugs and chemical precursors in 2021 alone and we saw mandatory minimum sentencing and tougher penalties for drug and illegal firearms trafficking. We will stand by the great work that our police services continue to do and we are very, very proud of the work that they do. Looking after them is the least we can do.

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