House of Assembly Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1) 55 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Naracoorte Police Station Naracoorte Police Station Mr McBRIDE House of Assembly MacKillop Naracoorte Police Station Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (15:03): My question is to the Treasurer and Minister for Police. Can the minister advise the house if a location has been chosen for the proposed $80 million police station in Naracoorte? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and that of the house, I will explain. Leave granted. Mr McBRIDE House of Assembly MacKillop Mr McBRIDE: In September last year, the then police minister told the house that land options were being explored with Renewal SA, but six months on we still have heard nothing. The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN House of Assembly Lee Treasurer Minister for Defence and Space Industries Minister for Police The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (15:04): I thank the member for his question, once again assiduously representing the interests of his local community. We take our responsibility to support regional police stations really seriously and that's why, in the 2023-24 state budget, we did allocate $18 million towards a new Naracoorte police station, because we were aware in the past that others had made commitments towards regional police stations, like Kalangadoo for example, that never eventuated. We didn't want to do the same thing. We wanted to do the right thing by this regional community, so we allocated $18 million, as the member said in his question. I am pleased to advise the house that a site has been selected. It is at 31 Smith Street, no doubt an address familiar to probably one of us. That land is vacant at the moment, and it's centrally located in the Naracoorte township, so an ideal location for a police station to be built, making sure that the community will find it easy to access. While there is some time that is required for the facilities to be designed, contracts to be let and, of course, the construction work to be undertaken, making sure that we have allocated the funding and found the right plot of land central to the Naracoorte township is really important. This $18 million, of course, is yet just another investment that the state government is making in making sure that police have the facilities, the equipment and the staff that they need to continue their important work protecting the community. That is why in recent weeks we have had the police commissioner also make the announcement that, with the benefit of the additional staff that have been funded by the South Australian government, by the Malinauskas Labor government, more sworn officers have been allocated to regional policing duties across South Australia. I am sure that when there are more sworn officers on the beat, across the regions, when there are new facilities that are being built, South Australian regional communities can take comfort that the police are not only working hard to protect them but getting the resources they need in order to conduct that effort.