Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the first roles of the Australian parliament is the security of its people. In a recent incident, on 16 July, a young family, 15 kilometres from Swan Hill, who were on the New South Wales side of the river, had an intruder in their home at 11 o'clock at night. The woman had to lock herself in the room with her three screaming children. Her husband had to call a neighbour to wrestle this offender, because the Victorian police were unable to go across the river; they had no jurisdiction in New South Wales. We have a situation where Victorian police can be 'constablised' to give them authority, but, because we have a lot of junior officers in our border towns, they are not constablised and able to cross over to the other side of the river.

Yesterday I met with the Minister for Law Enforcement and Cyber Security, Angus Taylor, and we are pushing very strongly for some federal jurisdiction to allow Victoria Police to cross over and protect citizens when they're on the other side of the river and to allow the New South Wales Police Force to cross over into Victoria. I think it is an anomaly that we have people who aren't able to be protected when their closest police officer is less than 15 kilometres away.

This family had to battle this guy for two hours. They managed to zip tie him down. Ironically, when the police came they put him in an ambulance and carted him back over to Victoria to the Victorian hospital, because he had cut his feet. This is more stuff we should be doing to protect the Australian people and our government is committed to it.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.