Leigh Creek Police Station

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart) (14:23): My question is to the Minister for Police. Can the minister please update the community of Leigh Creek and surrounding locations re: the staffing of the Leigh Creek Police Station? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain a bit further.

Leave granted.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: This station serves not only the people of Leigh Creek but also the smaller communities surrounding Leigh Creek and the ever-increasing tourism traffic. The station has not had a full-time or permanent officer for over 12 months. When there is an officer there, they are only there for spasmodic periods and the station is vacant at many times. When can the community of Leigh Creek expect the full staffing of this station?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (14:23): Can I thank the member for Stuart for his question, because I know that he not only pays a keen interest to these matters in his electorate but he is the first to raise it with ministers when it comes to matters that are of concern to his community—including, for example, the allocation of policing to regional communities like at Leigh Creek.

I think the member's explanation to his question was pretty instructive for the circumstance that the community of Leigh Creek finds itself in, where police are struggling to allocate permanent resources to Leigh Creek. It is not because the resourcing in total is not available. It is because they are finding it difficult to find individuals who are willing to be based in Leigh Creek. What that has meant is that they have had to provide police resourcing from other locations in regional South Australia to come in and conduct policing operations for a period of time, before going back and returning to those areas.

Of course, we should all be cognisant that while there has been a significant change in the community of Leigh Creek over the last 10 years there is still a resident population and from time to time they need to have access to police resources. While the two full-time positions which are funded for Leigh Creek are still being worked through and it is being done through temporary placements, what is happening is that police are being allocated from Marree, albeit about 120 kilometres away, as well as Hawker, about 155 kilometres away, in order to provide some regular visibility and accessibility to those policing resources for the local community.

This has also meant that South Australia Police, led by the police commissioner, have had to ensure the provision of additional benefits, supports and subsidies to police to get them to work in some of these regional locations. Of course many, particularly the other regional MPs in the chamber, would be familiar with the fact that on graduation, for example, from the Police Academy, it is not uncommon for a cadet to nominate a regional community to work in for a period of time, which would then give them the opportunity either to stay in that community or to be based in another service area subsequently. While that has been a really popular way of attracting people to initially work in a regional community and then those officers have found that they have enjoyed the experience so much that they never want to leave, the trend over the last 10 or so years, I am advised, has changed somewhat and they are finding it necessary to provide those additional incentives.

It is also one of the reasons why the Minister for Housing, through Renewal SA, is undertaking the regional housing strategy to build more fit-for-purpose housing for government employees—whether they are police, whether they are teachers, whether they are nursing or other health staff—to provide them with contemporary, attractive, modern accommodation which can house these critical government workers out in regional communities and also take the opportunity to work with councils and try to build that opportunity for the councils to have a much larger housing development when that is undertaken. All of those efforts will continue. The commissioner has spoken to me about this matter directly, and we are endeavouring to fix the problem as quickly as we can.