Ice Addiction

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (15:11): I have a supplementary question—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! One more time and I will warn you.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Given that the minister says (and repeated) that we have record numbers of police in the state, can he explain why our regional towns and communities are being overtaken with an ice epidemic?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I'm sick of frivolous. Go and talk to the mums and dads in our regional areas.

The PRESIDENT: Order! Let the minister answer the question.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Their lives are destroyed and you're laughing. You're a disgrace.

The PRESIDENT: The honourable Leader of the Opposition—

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I can't believe it. People's lives are being destroyed and he's laughing about it, Mr President.

The PRESIDENT: The honourable leader will sit down and listen to the answer.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order, all of you! The next person to speak and interject will be warned once; if they continue, they will be named. Minister, please start your answer, and try to be quick.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (15:12): I am happy to answer the question, because it is an important one, and it would be good to be able to do it without interjection from the person who asked the question before I have even said a single word. The issue of ice in regional areas is something that is of enormous concern to SAPOL, the community and, of course, the government, which is exactly why we are doing everything we can, from a policing perspective, to make sure that SAPOL has the resources it needs to be able to deal with various challenges that exist within the community around community safety. Ice in regional areas is no different.

If we were to slice up and actually analyse the context of the question from the honourable member, it would imply that, somehow, addressing the issue of ice in regional communities was the sole responsibility of the police. That is clearly not the case. This is a very substantial challenge to the community. There is no one single silver bullet policy that will address this. Even people from SAPOL will tell you that you could double the number of police in a particular town, and it would not necessarily solve the problem of ice. There is a whole range of other contributing factors that lead to higher levels of ice consumption within a particular community.

On more than one occasion—I am happy to repeat them, if the honourable member would like it—I have outlined to this chamber the operations that SAPOL has in place in regard to dealing with drugs at a number of different levels, whether it be operations dealing with low-level supply of drugs or operations dealing more with the elements of organised crime that find themselves in drug proliferation or, indeed, operations that deal specifically with the manufacturing and supply of products and chemicals that contribute to the manufacture of drugs on a large scale. This is something that SAPOL takes incredibly seriously, and this is something the government takes seriously.

However, the suggestion or the inference in your question that dumbs down and turns a complex public policy issue into a silly question that implies that SAPOL or the government are not doing their job when we are increasing SAPOL's resources so substantially, is quite frankly disingenuous.