South Australia Police Numbers

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (14:32): My question is to the Minister for Police. Has the minister increased the establishment number of South Australia Police today or will the additional motorcycle police just be allocated from the existing establishment number?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (14:32): It was a great pleasure, as the Premier referred to before, to stand with the police commissioner and make another important announcement about what will be included in tomorrow's state budget. Part of the announcements which have occurred to date have had a couple of matters in there of relevance to South Australia Police.

Yesterday, it was about replacing the sidearm that is issued to South Australia Police, given that the current semiautomatic model is no longer in production, funding that and of course providing the funding for training, maintenance, upkeep and so on. Today was about doubling the size of the police motorcycle contingent, and that will take numbers from 33 to 66. This is really South Australia Police's frontline presence on our roads.

They are usually engaged in keeping South Australian road users—motorists and other road users—safe by providing a very visible presence and that subconscious reminder to us all to be careful behind the wheel, as well as conduct other duties, whether it is managing major events in South Australia, controlling crowds, for example, with the Tour Down Under, clearing the way of vehicles and so on for pelotons to come through, or being present here at the regular demonstrations that occur out the front of Parliament House which spill onto North Terrace, and many other duties.

So did we increase it today? Well, there was not a graduation ceremony today. There was an announcement about funding which will occur from the 2025-26 financial year across the next four years, which is the customary way of describing budget measures—because it is not a budget for this financial year, it is not a budget for today, it is a budget for next financial year. It sets out the priorities of next financial year.

I am pleased to say that establishment figures have increased from where they were left to us by the previous Liberal government, and that is welcome news. We have listened carefully to the very good and strong representations from our police commissioner and his team about the need for the state budget to continue to make as greater resources available for South Australia Police as possible. We have done that in previous budgets.

Members might remember that in the 2023-24 budget we funded an extra 189 police security officers whose principal task after being recruited, really, was to undertake some of the roles which are usually support-type roles that frontline policing duties do not often require, thereby releasing a similar number of sworn officers onto frontline duties. That is really important, because people like to know that police are visible out in the community, on the beat, making them feel confident and secure in their safety but also deterring criminal activity. That is the record of the government.

Today's announcement goes further towards that and—as the police commissioner said in the rest of the audio of the press conference, which the leader of the Opposition for the second day in a row so selectively quotes from and misrepresents in this place—it will be—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: You can complain about it, but if you don't like it stand up and raise a point of order. As usual, Alex hasn't authorised it, so he stays seated.