Mark Speakman<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leader of the NSW Opposition<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Introduction
I thank Dr Jodie Edwards for welcoming us to country, and I acknowledge the Dharawal people, the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today, and pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today.
The NSW Police Force has faced a challenging 12 months.
We\u2019ve seen an increase in crime in many parts of our state.
We\u2019ve seen social cohesion degraded, fuelled by international events, and the rise of antisemitism \u2013 meaning Australians feel less safe in their schools, workplaces, places of worship, the streets, and even homes.
We\u2019ve seen continued gang warfare.
We\u2019ve seen the escalation of youth crime in our regions.
We\u2019ve seen much publicised and debated cases of domestic and family violence.
We\u2019ve seen major incidents that have tested our state\u2019s resolve, and in particular, the NSW Police Force in ways we don\u2019t often experience.
The Bondi Junction tragedy \u2013 where the actions of NSW Police Inspector Amy Scott, who offered our community a brief glimpse of the heroism and professionalism exercised by our force day in and day out. Her actions ensured that many more lives weren\u2019t lost \u2013 and will forever be remembered as shining example of the actions undertaken by the men and women of the NSW Police.
The Wakefield terrorism incident \u2013 where police and paramedics confronted unthinkable challenges while simply trying to do their work.
Regular protests about events in the Middle East.
Throughout all these incidents the NSW Police have carried themselves with distinction utmost professionalism.
I acknowledge your tireless work and dedication \u2013 the men and women of our force on the front line \u2013 confronting the horrors most of us only see or read about in the news.
Our entire state owes you a debt of gratitude.
These challenges require a timely and proportionate response from Government.
I\u2019m pleased to lead a team that\u2019s led the debate and put forward the ideas to ensure that you\u2019re supported.
I want to make sure that you have the tools and powers you need to succeed in your jobs.
I lead a strong Coalition between the Liberals and Nationals \u2013 and I acknowledge my Parliamentary colleague Paul Toole, the Shadow Minister for Police and former Minister for Police.
In Government we delivered what remains record investment in real terms for Police \u2013 but I\u2019m not here today to talk about our record.
I want to look at the constructive role the Opposition has played since the last election.
And our efforts to ensure that this Government builds on the many achievements of the Coalition in Government.
That\u2019s the role of a good, strong Opposition.
Regional crime
Both the Liberals and Nationals are proud to represent the regions across our state.
We know that in the past 12 months we\u2019ve seen an escalation of crime in the regions \u2013 in particular, youth crime.
When the Government initially refused to address the issue, we did. We never gave up calling for the next 6 months for an inquiry into regional and rural crime, backing in our communities, the Country Mayors Association and most importantly the calls from the Police Association.
That\u2019s why many of my colleagues wrote to the Premier, demanding action to address youth crime in the regions.
We\u2019d seen and heard enough of the constant stories that were filling the front page of newspapers, how violent crimes were being committed with weapons like knives and machetes, how the offenders could be as young as 10. We knew that something had to be done.
We\u2019ve launched a website where people can submit their stories. To date we\u2019ve received nearly 250 submissions \u2013 each a story that shouldn\u2019t be, and can\u2019t be, tolerated in our state.
Knife crime
The NSW Opposition will support reforms to reduce knife crime and improve community safety.
That\u2019s why we were the first to propose new wanding powers to be used by police anywhere at any time.
This backs in the call from the Police Association, along with the Retail Association, that these powers need to be broad.
I recently met with Brett and Belinda Beasley, the parents of Jack Beasley \u2013 who supported the need for these laws to be introduced as quickly as possible, and for them to be wide ranging as possible.
I know that people right across our community will support these actions \u2013 because at the end of the day people want our streets safe. They want these knives and weapons off our streets. Just like random breath testing reduced drink driving and so the road toll, random wanding can reduce the carrying of knives and therefore knife crime.
We welcome the first step taken by the Government, but we\u2019re disappointed that the proposed laws don\u2019t go further as we have called for. We\u2019ll be pursuing this further, to back in our police and keep our communities safe.
The NSW Opposition will seek to have these new laws reviewed in the future to determine if they\u2019re sufficient and strong enough to keep our streets safe.
Bail reform
Like Jack\u2019s Law, the Opposition has also led on the need for commonsense bail reform here in NSW.
We know that the Government\u2019s response to violence against women and children needs to be holistic and far broader than just bail reform, but bail reform now is an important start \u2013 and the time to act is now.
Reform is needed to keep the most serious of domestic and family violence offenders off our streets \u2013 or under strict electronic monitoring.
We know electronic monitoring works. In 2016 we started the Domestic Violence Electronic Monitoring Program for convicted offenders on parole or intensive corrections orders. After we left government, last year BOCSAR published its analysis of around 1,000 offenders and found that electronic monitoring was associated with a 33% reduction in domestic violence reoffending. It now makes sense to extend it to bail \u2013 and it\u2019s critical that we act now.
So earlier this month the NSW Opposition introduced into Parliament our Bail Amendment (Serious Personal Violence and Electronic Monitoring) Bill 2024, to strengthen bail laws in NSW. It proposes electronic monitoring for those on bail charged with serious domestic violence offences, a stay of the grant of bail for those on bail charged with serious domestic violence offences and magistrates not registrars dealing with bail for serious personal violence changes.
We\u2019re pleased that the Government\u2019s subsequent announcement on bail reform picks up those ideas. We\u2019re happy to have our homework copied. However we\u2019re disappointed that the Government didn\u2019t support our efforts last week to suspend the business of Parliament to work constructively with it to pass their new bail laws.
We sincerely hope that consideration of these new laws are the top priority when Parliament resumes next month.
We know that too much of your time is taken up responding to cases of domestic and family violence.
The Opposition stands ready to work constructively to get these new laws passed \u2013 both in response to knife crime and domestic violence.
It\u2019s what people expect of their Parliament \u2013 and it\u2019s the least we can do to ensure you have the tools and powers to do your job.
Conclusion
To conclude, I can say with confidence that my team backs the Police 100%.
We value the important job you do.
We\u2019re here to work with you.
And we\u2019re here to ensure you can do the job to the best of your ability.
In politics we often talk about priorities.
The first priority of the Liberals and Nationals will always be to keep our citizens safe.
And you\u2019re on the front line in that objective. We know this. And we\u2019ll continue to support the NSW Police, every day.
Thank you again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mark Speakman Leader of the NSW Opposition Introduction I thank Dr Jodie Edwards for welcoming us to country, and I acknowledge the Dharawal people, the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today, and pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander … Continue reading “Police Association NSW 2024 Biennial Conference”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26762,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26761\/revisions\/26762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}