House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-08-21 Daily Xml

Contents

Cummins Police Station

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (15:02): My question is to the Minister for Police. When can the people of Cummins in my electorate expect to have a police station building available for the police in the town? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr TELFER: The police station house in Cummins was condemned and demolished, leaving only temporary arrangements, and despite receiving reassurance from the former minister at the time about it being replaced, there has still been no news to update my community.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (15:02): I thank the member for Flinders for his question. I think he is right to raise these issues about making sure that the local communities that he represents, particularly in regional parts of South Australia, have access both to policing services and the policing infrastructure that supports them.

I can't say that I am immediately familiar with the situation in Cummins, but I am aware that there has been a combination of two difficulties that South Australia Police have been grappling with in recent years. One is sometimes the state of the facilities or the state of the police stations and other buildings that they have previously worked out of for many years. As the member said in his question, it appears that that particular building was condemned and demolished and hence not available.

There are also the staffing challenges of attracting South Australian police to work out in regional communities. In particular, a part of that is making sure that both the housing and the facilities are suitable to make that compelling case for people to not seek to be located in a metropolitan district but instead to be out in a regional area. I will take that question away. I will raise it with South Australia Police and I will bring back some information for the benefit of the member and his constituents.