Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion and, in doing so, can I commend the member for Fowler for bringing it to the attention of the House. I know he has spoken in the past about the importance of our police around the country and he is committed to the work that they do. As I have said, I commend him for bringing this motion to the House and for his speech earlier on.

Earlier today the member for Fowler, a number of others and I attended the presentation of police medals by the Prime Minister to the first 16 recipients of that medal. Firstly, I say congratulations to all the recipients of those medals at today's presentation. Officers from around the country were there and it was good to see the different states and territories represented at the presentation. I particularly congratulate the South Australian recipients of the medal, Sergeant Bill Bampton and Senior Constable Jessie Hughes, who I met for the first time this morning and who I know are very worthy recipients of the medal and will do the medal proud. I also congratulate South Australian Police Commissioner Mal Hyde who, on behalf of his commissioner colleagues, addressed the gathering. As a fellow South Australian and as I know Commissioner Hyde, it was good to see him standing up there, representing the national police commissioners from around Australia, and also to hear his words. He spoke very well. He was very well supported as well by the South Australian Police Association President, Mark Carroll, and the state secretary of the association Andy Dunn, who is in the gallery with us here today and I acknowledge his presence. Before I go on to my other remarks, I also acknowledge the 42 South Australian police riders who participated in the 1,230-strong motorcycle contingent to Canberra in the Wall-to-Wall Ride for Remembrance. I am sure for them it would have been both an enjoyable ride and a very long ride from Adelaide to Canberra.

I thought the Prime Minister, in her address this morning, spoke eloquently and she covered all of the important comments that needed to be made in respect to this motion and the work of our serving police officers around the country. Essentially, she made the point that every day some 56,000 police officers around the country leave their home to go out to work not knowing what to expect, not knowing if they are going to return home safely. Simultaneously, their families see their loved ones leaving to go to work not knowing if they will see them come back at the end of the day and not knowing, if they do come back at the end of the day, if they will be in one piece—and so often that is not the case, and we have just heard the member for Petrie speaking about her personal experience with her partner. For them and their families it is a pretty tough ask to say that you are going to leave to go to work not knowing what to expect. For us in the rest of society, we get up and we do the same—we go to work—but we go with the comfort of knowing that we are relatively safe because of the work of police officers around the country. It is quite reassuring to have people out there doing exactly that so that we can get on with the rest of our lives in the way that we would like to do so. It is not just in respect to safety in the broader sense. Every day we are confronted with different crises from around the country, whether it is a crime scene, a motor vehicle accident or domestic violence and so on, and whenever there is a crisis who do we first call? The police, and we ask them to be there to try and reassure us, take control of the situation and get things back in order. It is a huge responsibility on the serving police officers of this country, as other speakers have said.

In the brief time I have left to me, I simply want to make a couple of points. On previous occasions I have spoken about some of the South Australian police officers who have been killed or injured in the line of duty and I have talked about Senior Constable Derrick McManus, who in 1994 was shot 14 times, and Senior Constable David Barr, who was killed at Salisbury in 1990. But today I want to very briefly talk about Constable Nathan Mulholland and Constable Tung Tran, who on 25 May 2010 were shot when they responded to a call for assistance at a residential address. The person who shot them actually called them to go to the home because he 'needed assistance' and when they got there he shot both of them without any reason at all. I know Constable Tran sustained a very serious head injury. That is the kind of job police officers are confronted with. I say to those police officers that 29 September is a day when we remember your services. It is fitting that the monument in Canberra has inscribed on it the name of each and every officer who has lost their life to protect ours.

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