Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the motion moved by the member for Fowler, and I commend the member for Fowler who is, as he mentioned, also the son of a police officer who has dedicated his entire working life to serving our community in New South Wales. So I support the motion and I thank the member for Fowler for bringing this motion into this place. In doing so, I acknowledge the many other members in this place who have a connection not only to our police force, as it is now gladly known in New South Wales, but also to those who have an association with police forces around the country, including the member for Solomon, whose husband is a serving member of the Northern Territory Police Force. Of course, the member for Macarthur was a serving member of the New South Wales Police Force before coming to this place. He continues to serve his community in this place in the same way.

I was privileged to have the honour earlier this year to speak in this place on the 150th anniversary of the New South Wales Police Force. On 1 March a sea of blue marched from the Marine Area Command up George Street to Town Hall in Sydney to pay tribute to the longstanding service and commitment of our police force. Our police do vital work that often goes unnoticed, but not unappreciated, in our communities. It is one of those jobs where it is a good day if you have not been called upon by them.

Sadly, as the member for Fowler mentioned in his words today, what we saw in Sydney on the weekend was a bad day. It was a day when New South Wales police had to go and do a very important job, and that was to enforce the law. Laws were broken on the weekend. There is one rule, there is one law, for all Australians in this country, and all Australians, regardless of our heritage, must respect those laws. Where those rules and laws are broken, the good men and women of the New South Wales Police Force and forces in other places will be called upon by us to go and enforce those laws, as they did on the weekend—at great risk of injury to themselves. I am sure I speak for all members of this place in condemning what we saw on the weekend—not just the violence, not just the nature of the protest, but the tone of that protest and the unspeakable things that children were holding up as signs. It is our police who we ask to go and stand up for us on these occasions, as they have in so many difficult situations in the past.

Policing is a distinguished job, and I know well the pride felt by those who wear the uniform, men and women who daily risk their own safety to protect our communities. In this place I particularly recognise the work of our local officers in the shire, Superintendent Julian Griffiths of the Sutherland Local Area Command, and Superintendent Greg Antonjuk of the Miranda Local Area Command who lead a sterling team. The Sutherland LAC numbers 143 officers, and 126 officers work out of the Miranda LAC.

As the member for Fowler has mentioned, I also pay my respects and give honour to those who have lost their lives in the service of our community in New South Wales. Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, I think the finest commissioner to ever wear the hat, said at the weekend that in New South Wales alone we have lost 251 officers over the last 150 years.

Senior Constable Rixon was the last to have been tragically lost to us, in that incident in Tamworth in March this year when he was shot by an offender who had a weapon that they had been able to purchase. It had found its way into their hand and, on that fateful day, was fired into Senior Constable Rixon, whose family must live with the consequences of that fateful day for the rest of their lives. As a member of a police family, my heart goes out to them and the too many officers who have fallen in the line of duty on our behalf over all of these years. The families are protected by those who served in uniform. They try to keep their stories away from their families, as I know in my own case, but we respect them. We love them and thank them for what they do, and the honour they give to the names of our own families when they go and do this: not just in the name of the New South Wales Police Force but also as our fathers, our brothers, our sisters, our uncles, our aunts, our nephews, our nieces, our sons and our daughters. They do an extraordinary job on behalf of all of us.

I really do thank the member for Fowler for once again, as he has done on so many occasions, bringing motions such as this one into this place to ensure that we recognise them in the way that we do. We will have to call on them many, many more times in the future, as we all know. I am just very thankful that there are men and women in our community who are still, despite the risk, prepared to stand up and serve our community as police officers in New South Wales.

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