Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak about this motion dealing with empowering youth and reducing crime—a motion straight out of the Liberal Party playbook. They prey on people's fears and try to scare and divide people into voting for them. They are boring and predictable, the original one-trick pony. The motion has no regard for facts or community. It is as sickening as it is repetitive.

Perhaps the member for La Trobe who brought the motion forgot it was his party that rorted the Safer Communities Fund under the supervision of the now Leader of the Opposition. Almost half of the total funding under this program was diverted from recommended merit based projects to projects in target coalition seats to buy votes. The Auditor-General found that funding decisions 'were not appropriately informed by departmental briefings'. Now the member for La Trobe wants to be taken seriously on a motion about community safety.

Give me a break! I heard no cries from the member for La Trobe when his leader and the rest of the Liberal Party tarnished the reputation of the Safer Communities Fund and sacrificed community safety for short-term political gain. The member for La Trobe has admitted that he personally intervened in the selection process to prioritise projects in Liberal target seats over communities that actually needed the funding. These are the people that we're supposed to believe care deeply about safety in our nation. Unlike those opposite, the Albanese Labor government acts with integrity and takes our responsibility to community safety seriously.

Since 22 October, we've provided $182 million to improve community safety through community based preventive and justice-free investment initiatives. Importantly, all this funding has gone to communities that really needed funding, because, in stark contrast to those opposite, our government runs transparent and fair grants processes. We serve the Australian people and make positive differences in communities right across the country, while those opposite serve themselves only.

Last year, the government implemented faith-based places grants to ensure that Australians can continue to safely practice their religions. This $50 million investment provides funding for security guards and upgrades to faith facilities and helps to protect Australians of faith from religious intolerance. In June this year, the Attorney-General announced funding of $13.57 million for state and territory Police Citizens Youth Clubs and Blue Light organisations. This program focuses on young people at risk of becoming involved with criminal and antisocial behaviour. It is cheaper to divert than to incarcerate.

Remember, it costs around $900,000 or a million dollars per year to keep one young person in custody. Diversionary activities improve young people's engagement with education and work-ready programs and foster family and community connections. From someone whose partner has worked in this area for 30-plus years, I can tell you that engagement with education is the key for people that might get into trouble. It helps reduce recidivism rates and is yet another example of this government's fair dinkum commitment to community safety. It also highlights the approach of early intervention and supporting young people so that they do not take those wrong turns.

Those opposite won't now acknowledge the value of these initiatives because, as we know, they are not serious about community safety. This motion is all about scaring the Australian community and taking them for mugs. Those opposite love mugs—they've still got plenty of those black mugs! But, if they really cared about community safety, maybe they wouldn't have disbanded the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management, the Commonwealth's foremost body to engage with the states and territories on keeping Australians safe in their homes. We've reinstated this body, which has already proved its worth, supporting work on the implementation of a national firearms register—practical help.

If the member for La Trobe were serious about community safety, you would think he might have raised his concerns about national knife law reforms with his own party before bringing his sound-and-fury motion to this parliament. The measures in this motion were promised by the Liberal Party back in 2010. I could give the member for La Trobe the benefit of the doubt and assume he genuinely did not find the time to raise this issue with his colleagues during his nine years in government—or we could recognise this motion for what it is: a reflection of the shameful record of those opposite, prepared to exploit fear for their short-term political gain, rather than doing the right thing by the community. It is another shallow and cynical political attempt to scare Australians, in spite of the Albanese Labor government's actions, which are all about promoting community safety and harmony.

See this speech in context