It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the Terrorism (Community Protection) and Control of Weapons Amendment Bill 2024, and it is a hard act to follow the member for Bayswater, who has a really intimate knowledge and great understanding of how this bill will support our Victorian police, as he has been a police member himself. He gave great insight into why this bill is important but also clearly articulated how this side of government is backing our police every single day in the job that we do here, supporting the difficult job that police have across all of our communities. I thank him for his contribution.

I will just go to a couple of overall objectives of this bill, and I want to talk a little bit about what it might mean for the Bellarine. This bill will make some amendments to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the voluntary case management scheme under the Terrorism (Community Protection) Act 2003, and the bill also makes some amendments to the Control of Weapons Act 1990 to enhance community safety. It will do this by enabling police to exercise, without warrant or suspicion, unlawful weapons search powers in public places that are in areas declared by the Chief Commissioner of Police to be designated areas in a more flexible way, for longer periods and in expanded circumstances. I will go into a little bit more of that in just a moment.

It is a pleasure to rise in this place to put on the record and have the opportunity to speak about something that affects us all, and that is safety. When we talk about safety it is not just about crime prevention; we are talking about the wellbeing of our community, the wellbeing of our families, the security on our streets and that peace of mind that we have when going about our lives, allowing us to work and live and raise our children in a community that we can really be proud of and be safe in. Although this bill does talk a lot about law enforcement, our Victorian police and their powers, it is a community issue and a responsibility of all of us to share that duty. There can be great partnerships with our residents, our businesses, our schools and our emergency services, and when we come together we build a safer community, a stronger one and a connected one.

I must say that I think the Bellarine communities do an extraordinary job in this area, and I would like to share with the house something that we have that may be unique. Maybe other communities do have something similar, but we have a community group called the bSafe community group. It was something established by the previous member for Bellarine Lisa Neville. She created a group that has representatives from each of the suburbs across the Bellarine who come together and have a direct line to and conversation with local police and local command. That is an ongoing group that I now chair as well, and we have regular catch-ups across time. There is nothing confidential about these meetings, but we discuss the crime stats and the police discuss the issues that they are seeing locally. They might talk about the particular areas that they are targeting. Sometimes that is about road safety. Sometimes it is about water safety. Other times it has been about e-scooters or visiting schools. They have targeted approaches across the Bellarine, and then community members have the ability to raise issues that they are seeing in their own communities. A lot of it has been around graffiti or shoplifting. It might be around car theft and breaking into cars. It is a great tool for the community to raise these issues directly with local police, who then put in a strategy to counteract some of these things they are seeing.

For example, in partnership with Neighbourhood Watch and the bSafe group’s support, police have been doing anti-theft-screw numberplates. People can go along for free. They drive into the car park near Bunnings – last time it was in Leopold – and they get their numberplate screws changed over to anti-theft screws. It is a really great initiative that we are doing proactively for the community to feel safer. The police also have a targeted scam watch session. They have done a prevention strategy around scams. They were noticing an increase in people being scammed. They are getting cleverer by the day, and with an elderly population on the Bellarine, a lot were being targeted. They have gone into different community groups, nursing homes and a variety of organisations to talk about how to protect yourself from a scam. Police reported last time a decrease in scams across the Bellarine. That is the kind of proactive action that we are taking. I just want to thank, in this instance, our local police. They have been a really proactive, visible presence on the Bellarine, and I thank them for all the work they have done across this time.

It is something that I am really proud to continue, this bSafe group. I cannot emphasise enough how important it is for our communities to have that direct line to police, and I thank them for their commitment to continue to come along and for their proactive approach. I think, in this meeting – and I talked outside of the meeting with community members – that the most powerful tool they have is awareness. They know their neighbours. They check in on their neighbours and they look after each other. They recognise that we can all contribute in a way to keep our community safe. I say this a lot about the Bellarine, but we are a very connected community. We have a strong sense of our values and what is right and wrong, and we are doing a terrific job in being proactive in this space.

The other organisation that is really incredible on the Bellarine, which might also be slightly unique, is called the Bellarine Community Support Register. This is a group of volunteers that provide a service for those who may need it. It is about collecting personal, medical and property details on a database. If you are vulnerable, elderly or have some difficulties at times, this organisation will call you to check in to see how you are going and see if everything is okay. Sometimes it can be a quick ‘How are you going?’ and ‘Yep, we’re fine’ – and that is it. Other times it can be a longer conversation. But in an emergency or if something has happened and we have not heard from someone for a few days, this register is able to connect with local police, who can then access the information and check up on that person to check if they are doing okay. It really is great to give that reassurance to families and the registrants that someone is there to check in and keep them safe or provide peace of mind if needed. That is just another example of how our communities and volunteers work together with local police to create a really safe environment.

I will touch on a couple of things in the bill. This bill looks at the pathways for Victorians who are at risk of being radicalised towards violent extremism. It is a worrying trend that we are seeing across the nation. Our ASIO Director-General of Security Mike Burgess recently addressed the nation with the Prime Minister in August last year. At that time, he stated:

While the threats to our way of life remain elevated, we are seeing an increase in extremism. More Australians are being radicalised and radicalised more quickly. More Australians are embracing a more diverse range of extreme ideologies and more Australians are willing to use violence to advance their cause.

That is why this bill is really, really important. We recognise this, and we recognise the need for therapeutic interventions for those who may be vulnerable to those violent extremisms. So this amendment bill in front of the house today, to do that, looks at improving the operations of the voluntary case management scheme and giving it flexibility. This bill also makes amendments to the Control of Weapons Act 1990. That will give police the powers, tools and resources they need to ensure that they can do the job that they need to do to keep our communities safe as well.

In conclusion, I encourage others to be proactive as well in their community. It can be as simple as checking in on your neighbour or attending a community meeting. You can see the bSafe newsletter that I have on my website as well. You can check in and see all of the action that we are undertaking. We know we need to create a safe community where everyone can feel a sense of security and belonging, and I commend the bill to the house.