Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria)

My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Police and Emergency Services.

On 17 June 2020, I raised an adjournment matter with the minister asking for a full cost breakdown of the $25 million expenditure on 600 longarm rifles for Victoria Police.

Ninety days later, I received a response on 15 September 2020 after raising it in the chamber and writing multiple letters to the minister and the Legislative Council President.

In the response just received, the minister conceded that of the $25 million, only $1 172 500 was spent on purchasing 300 rifles.

The press release issued on 17 February 2020, titled ‘New police firepower to target major incidents’, is now curiously unavailable on the Victorian government’s website, despite statements as far back as 2014 still being available.

The original release detailed that the $25 million would be spent on 600 rifles.

Now we have discovered that instead, only $1 172 500 will be spent on 300 rifles and the remaining $23 827 500 on ‘specialist user training, organisation-wide training and firearm parts replacements’.

This is an extraordinary amount of money to be spent on training and not what was detailed to taxpayers by the minister in February 2020.

I concur that we must have well-trained police officers, particularly when they are wielding military-grade weaponry, but for only 700 officers? The figures don’t stack up.

This equates to roughly $34 000 per officer.

The action I seek from the minister is an explanation and cost breakdown of this training, including who is providing it, how they were they chosen to provide it and why so much money is being reserved for training.

I also urge the minister to provide me with a response to this adjournment matter or an explanation otherwise, as she is required under the standing orders, rather than make a habit of being two months overdue.