Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise and acknowledge my support of the Hayes motion on National Police Remembrance Day. It is an opportunity to honour the memory of those who have given their lives in the service of our community.

National Police Remembrance Day service is significant and it is a significant date on the policing calendar. This year it is marked on 29 September. At this year's service I was honoured to be invited to participate in a Blue Ribbon Day memorial service at the Frankston RSL in Dunkley and to lay a wreath in honour of those who had served and lost their lives in the line of duty in our local community. I was joined by my state and local government counterparts, Acting Superintendent Simon Humphrey, members of the local police force, family and friends of Victorian police officers and members of the community.

Importantly, a Victorian Police Star medal was posthumously awarded to First Constable Edward Keith Simmons, who died while serving on duty on Olivers Hill in Frankston on 24 September 1957, at the age of just 33. First Constable Simmons had two children: Cathy, aged four years, who has now passed away, and Andrew Keith Simmons, who was two years old at the date of his father's death. Andrew was there to accept the award on his father's behalf at the event, and it was a very moving ceremony.

This memorial service has offered the opportunity to provide solemn reflection and a space for serving and retired police officers and their families, along with members of the Dunkley community, to honour the memory of police officers who gave their lives in the service of our community. Personally I have two cousins—my cousin Jason McKenzie and his wife Melissa—who serve as police officers in Melbourne. Melissa is about to have their third child.

So it is particularly important that members of the police force are respected and that we remember the significant service of those who lost their lives. We have to keep working to ensure that police officers are protected and respected in the line of duty. The total number of police officers now listed in the national police memorial is now 764, following the addition of seven new names to the wall.

In Dunkley, for example, there are in excess of 100 police members as well as detectives and support staff who are working in Dunkley. Recently raised with me by Counsellor Darryl Taylor, formerly the Mayor of the City of Frankston and now standing again as a councillor in the upcoming elections—was the idea of installing a formal police memorial at the new Frankston war memorial site in Frankston. Darryl was instrumental in securing these funds to begin with for the new memorial. I thought this was a terrific idea that should be supported. It is an idea that would honour those police officers who have served and who may have lost their lives in duty in Dunkley, but also it respects those across Victoria who have gone through a similar circumstance.

I would also like to thank and honour the men and women of the police force in Dunkley who put their lives on the line all the time. They do a significant job. I have experienced the work of the police force and been to a number of events in Dunkley to hear from members of the police force about what they have done and what they continue to do in protecting our community. Frankston in Dunkley, like many other communities across Victoria, is not precluded from having issues around crime and violence, particularly domestic violence. Being the father of a one-year-old daughter and the husband of my wife for over seven years, I believe it is quite significant that we need to support police officers in their work in protecting, in particular, women, children, the elderly and others from the impacts of domestic violence. National Police Remembrance Day goes to the heart of what the police force do, and we really need to make sure that we support them in Dunkley and beyond.

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