Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is becoming an all-too-familiar story: like many of my Labor colleagues, my electorate was visited during the recent election by the Minister for Justice, who came promising federal funding for CCTV cameras for Amaroo Village retirement homes in Gosnells and, for the City of Gosnells, the installation of local community facility CCTV. But it turns out that the promise meant nothing. The minister has backflipped on that commitment, sending letters to the City of Gosnells and to Amaroo asking them to apply for the funding that they had been promised! And in this letter he goes on to say that these community safety projects will be subject to government budget processes—a nice bit of wiggle room being created there by the Turnbull government, to talk away its promises to the people of Gosnells in my seat of Burt.

The City of Gosnells has one of the highest crime rates in Perth. More than 1,100 assaults were committed in the city in the first nine months of this year, as well as almost 1,300 burglaries. CCTV is not a silver bullet by any means, but it will create peace of mind for the elderly residents of Amaroo Village and for the users of the City of Gosnells's facilities, where there have been spates of burglaries just this year.

There are only so many times a government can break promises before the voters get fed up and tune out. My constituents were made a firm commitment during the election campaign, and I will be fighting every day to ensure that the Minister for Justice keeps his word and gives the Gosnells community the safety and peace of mind that they were promised.