Mr PALLAS (Tarneit) — The matter I wish to raise is for the Attorney-General, and the action I seek is  that he review, and in so doing upgrade,  the security arrangements  at  Werribee  Magistrates  Court  to  ensure  there  are  adequate facilities to safeguard the protection of court users and staff.

Werribee Magistrates Court  faces a number  of security shortfalls. The entrance to  the  court is protected only by walk-through metal detectors, which are  not manned by protective services officers (PSOs).  The area around the detectors is not secure and could  easily be  circumvented. The  absence of PSOs at the court has led  to the local police station being obliged to provide  one officer  from its already stretched forces to oversee security. In addition, the waiting areas are open plan and do not lend themselves to separating parties to a dispute.

This is of serious concern given that a large  proportion of the cases that  the court deals with  are family-violence based. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the location of  the male and female amenities increases the potential for  parties  to  come  into  contact  with  each other.  This is  an  issue  of particularly  profound  concern. I  am  aware  that there  has  already been  an incident  this year  where  serious violence was  avoided  only because  of  the excellent work  by  a  police  prosecutor  and  two  police  officers  who  were fortuitously present.

Werribee Magistrates Court currently has a single operating  courtroom, which is inadequate for its needs for two main  reasons. Firstly, the courtroom itself is very small, with the dock in particular not sufficiently distanced from the rest of the court. There is no provision for safe rooms or a video link for witnesses and no capacity to hold prisoners securely.

This impedes the ability of  witnesses  in particular to feel safe and confident when participating in  court procedures, and  it drains resources,  as prisoners must be  held at  and transported  from Werribee police station, which is some 2 kilometres from the court.

Secondly,  having  a single courtroom reduces the number of matters the court is able to hear, which has resulted in  only mentions  being heard at that location and parties to contested matters  being  forced to travel to the Sunshine court, which is more  appropriately resourced. Despite this reduced workload, the court is operating at capacity  and is consistently  overcrowded, which can  aggravate the security concerns outlined above.

I  understand  that  the infrastructure  inadequacies  of the  court  have  been apparent for some time and will not be able to be rectified immediately.

On this subject, I have in the past advocated, and I continue to advocate, for a justice  precinct  in the city of Wyndham,  which  would  provide  a  much  more appropriate level of service to the community. As part of the review of security arrangements, the court  should be provided with PSOs and video link capacity as a matter of urgency  in order to meet the immediate and serious concerns for the physical safety of those attending Werribee Magistrates Court.

See Tim’s speech in Hansard here.