James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I very much appreciate the opportunity the member for McPherson has provided for us to put on the record our appreciation for our law enforcement personnel in this country, and I commend comments made by a number of previous speakers. It is obviously an issue that the House views unanimously.

I want to touch on two areas. The first is what we've seen over the last couple of years from our police and other law enforcement agencies who have supported our society through the challenges of the COVID pandemic. It reminds us of what a police force is there to do. Most of us hope not to have too much to do with the police force if we can help it, because sometimes, instinctively, we think policing is really about finding people that are doing the wrong thing, and, of course, our police force do exactly that. But through COVID we saw the breadth of the sorts of things that police officers do in our society.

I am from the state of South Australia. We had a border closure and a number of directives that were in place. Our police commissioner, Grant Stevens, who is of no relation to me, was the dedicated person under the Emergency Management Act. As the State Coordinator, he had to take the lead in the response to COVID and all the measures that were put in place. The police force that he leads and led through that period of time, with a lead agency, had to deal with a whole range of things that had never occurred before, like border measures et cetera. So a lot of us came into contact with the police force in new and different ways and saw exactly their dedication, how much they do in our society and the value of the work they do.

Other members have talked about how taxing it is as a career. They talked about the shiftwork, the horrendous experiences and the things that police officers see and the mental health pressures that that brings to bear on them—as it would for anyone who goes through those experiences. The member for Fisher mentioned the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation and the work that they do. It's obviously a terrible, terrible area of policing, where you're dealing with some of the most horrendous, awful, disgusting human beings on the planet—people who seek to exploit children and, particularly, sexually abuse them. The people that are engaged in tracking down this scum, finding them, stopping them and bringing them to justice are great heroes in our society. Imagine what sort of a mental toll that would take on you when you're having to look at some of the most disturbing images and you have to investigate some of the most disturbing circumstances of child abuse and child exploitation. We don't often think of it because it's 'out of sight, out of mind', but there are people that are doing such emotionally draining and mentally straining tasks. They work in our police forces to protect us from some of the worst people in society.

National Police Week is an opportunity to reflect on the contribution of police officers, what they do for our society, the very hard work they do and the risk to them. Other speakers have talked about injuries and at times death in the line of duty. That is something that we should always acknowledge and take an opportunity to be very grateful for as a nation. We have that opportunity in this motion.

Looking at National Police Week from the point of view of not only the service that our law enforcement officers provide but also the risks that they take and the pressure and toll it puts on them and their families, I'm very grateful for all the police—in my electorate and in my state of South Australia and in the other law enforcement branches like the Federal Police, who look after us in this building—and the way in which they work together to keep all Australians safe and to properly police the laws of the land and also for the broader work that they do, which of course is extremely taxing. We appreciate their service, we acknowledge their service and we thank them very much for what they do to keep us safe.

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