Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased in this debate to follow the contribution of my friend the member for Hotham, the shadow minister for justice. But I am disappointed that we are having a debate on these terms, which do not do anything for anyone, in Victoria or otherwise. This debate is a waste of the parliament's time. What we have heard in the contributions from members opposite is them seeing themselves as commentators—or perhaps complainers—rather than as people interested in solving serious problems. I hope, over the rest of this debate, I will be proven wrong but I do not think that is very likely.

The member for Hotham described the contributions of government members in this debate as 'galling'. I think that is actually pretty generous when you have regard to the record of this government and reflect particularly on two things: the true state of Victorian state political decision making and its consequences over the past six or seven years and also our role as members of this federal parliament. The member for Hotham was correct to reflect on some of the key failings of the Turnbull government—and, indeed, the failings on the record of its predecessor, led by the member for Warringah—in imposing cuts that have had a very serious impact. These are things that should be reflected on in the subject matter of this debate.

I was very interested to see, in the litany of complaint that constitutes the motion before the House at the moment, reference to the Safer Streets program. Of course there is a role for CCTV; I think we all understand that. But this program has been an extraordinary failure. Its failure was set out clearly not in Labor terms but by the Australian National Audit Office, which found that 90 per cent of the program's funding had been allocated to government-held seats. It was the purest of pork-barrelling disguised as concern for community safety, which is something we have seen all too often from conservatives. That is what is so disturbing: at one level hysteria is being fanned, with people being made to feel much more afraid than they should be; on another level, under the cover of a debate about community safety, there are efforts to foment division and attack social cohesion, when we should be joining in the shared challenge of ensuring that all of our communities are safe. It is of concern to me and to all members on this side of the House, and I know it is of genuine concern to members—

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