Police action call

By Kath Gannaway
THE Healesville and Yarra Junction police stations should be turned into 24-hour stations, the Yarra Ranges Shire says, and it wants more police resources to make it happen.
Yarra Ranges councillors Terry Avery and Richard Higgins, both police officers, absented themselves from the council chambers on Tuesday 23 June, as every other councillor launched into impassioned arguments for more police to meet the needs of the 55 townships across the shire.
Cr Graham Warren moved the motion that the council write to the Chief Commissioner of Police “demanding” more police be allocated to the shire. The motion included the call to staff the two Yarra Valley stations round the clock and to fully staff the new Olinda police station.
The call has been backed by police working in Yarra Ranges who, while banned from speaking out publicly, have told the Mail “off the record” over the past two years that they are under-resourced with members overworked, stressed and not able to provide an acceptable level of policing to their communities.
Cr Warren said law and order was becoming an increasingly bigger issue in the shire.
“I have had a number of calls from people who are too scared to leave their houses on a Saturday night,” he said.
“We keep hearing from the Commissioner of Police about how well things are going and how well resourced we are, but it is not what we’re seeing,” he said.
He said Lilydale had one divisional van to cover from an covering Lilydale to Healesville to Yarra Glen from 7pm to 7am.
“If they had to arrest someone in Healesville the nearest holding cell is in Ringwood so you have two hours at least where no one is able to respond to anyone in that area,” he said.
He cited an incident in Mooroolbark that drew police from around the shire leaving, he said, 55 towns with no divisional van to respond to the rest of the shire.
“If this is all they can do, I give up,” he added, calling for a public letter-writing campaign to pressure the police hierarchy and the government into action.
Cr Jeanette McRae wrote to Police Minister Bob Cameron in January calling for a 24-hour police presence in Healesville.
She said the town had a bigger population than many towns that already had 24-hour stations. Healesville had more visitors.
She described as rhetoric Mr Cameron’s response quoting increased funding and police numbers since the government came to office.
“There has been enough rhetoric, enough throwing statistics at us. We have situations where police have gone to arrest someone and because the situation with the divisional van would leave the area with no police coverage, people are being allowed to walk away,” she said.
She dismissed Mr Cameron’s stand that placement of police was an operational matter for police command as “political”.
The Police Association has supported the council’s stand, saying Yarra Ranges is in the midst of a severe police shortage with 26 more officers needed to provide an adequate, visible and proactive police presence.
The association’s secretary, Senior Sergeant Greg Davies, said that while there was a case to be made for 24-hour stations at Healesville and Yarra Junction the lack of police numbers would make it almost impossible.
He said the answers rested with the State Government which, he said, had the capacity, if not the political will, to fix the problem.
“Local police command can only work with what they’re given, which unfortunately is not much,’ he said.
Inspector Andrew Humberstone, the officer in charge of Yarra Ranges, said additional resources were deployed to the hills and valley when and where needed with 16-hour cover in Upper Yarra and Healesville/Yarra Glen areas.
“We do the job with the resources we have,” he said. “We would always like to get more police but with the current budget that’s what we have to deal with,” he said.
That echoes the “on the record” stand of police on the job who say in the end it’s about prioritising.
“You do the best with what you’ve got,” they say.