THE HON MARK DREYFUS KC MP
ATTORNEY-GENERAL
CABINET SECRETARY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
LISA CHESTER MP
MEMBER FOR BENDIGO
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
BENDIGO
WEDNESDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2024
SUBJECTS: U 25-GO Blue Light funding; Chinese military video; AUKUS.
LISA CHESTERS, MEMBER FOR BENDIGO: I'm really proud to be standing next to my friend and colleague, the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, who is here today with a significant funding announcement for our local Blue Light Program. The Bendigo Blue Light chapter has been running for over a decade now, and almost for as long as I've been a Federal Member, and since my very first engagement with them, I was just impressed at the way they want to help young people break free, change their life, change their pathway. Many of the people involved in Bendigo Blue Light are serving officers, police officers, and their passion that they have for young people in Bendigo is extraordinary. And the young people involved in this program, their bravery to make a difference and to change their pathway is fantastic. Quite often people write them off. People in media, people in politics, will write these young people off, but they didn't write themselves off. Neither did Anglicare, neither did the partners involved in this program, and neither did our government, and that is why I'm so proud that that the Attorney-General is here to make an announcement today for the future of this program. So welcome back to Bendigo, Mark.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL MARK DREYFUS: Thank you very much, Lisa and I am delighted to be here with my friend and colleague Lisa Chesters as the Member for Bendigo to announce funding as part of a Federal Government program U25-GO, which is going to be $13.5 million for nine organisations across the country, police, youth, citizens clubs and Blue Light organisations right across Australia. But right here in Bendigo, we're announcing $2 million as part of this program for Blue Light Victoria which is going to be providing programs to youth across the Bendigo region, the La Trobe region and the Melbourne region. And this is really useful programs. They're tailored programs for young people from 10 to 17, and depending on the particular needs of the young person, it's very often one on one counselling, but it's also working with families, different groups of selected young people, and it's a wonderful demonstration of the commitment that the Albanese Labor Government has to supporting young people in our country. We need to look at ways to keep people out of the criminal justice system. We need to look at ways to pick up young people who've been in the criminal justice system, to make sure they don't return to the criminal justice system. We know these programs work. We've seen from the Blue Light organisation. We heard from Lily and Jaykob here earlier today about how good the program has been for them, and I know from previous contact with the Blue Light organisation just how useful the work that they do is. We're aiming to keep on supporting that work, because we know how good it can be. Thanks very much.
REPORTER: Can I just ask one quick question on today's announcement in regional areas, obviously here Bendigo and La Trobe as well, for these young people to have an opportunity to seek out a program like this in regional areas, specifically where we know services can be few and far between, services like this. So, what was the business case that these guys put forward that we thought, yep, okay, this is something we want to fund.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The business case that Blue Light Victoria put forward is, we've been doing this for quite some time, and we know it works. That's a great business case. We like to work with organisations that are established. We like to work with organisations that have got connections in the community. We like to work with organisations that have got established group of volunteers. Blue Light Victoria ticks every single one of those boxes.
REPORTER: I've just got two unrelated questions for you Attorney-General. Have you seen the Chinese military video of a dangerous intercept of Australian aircraft over the South China Sea, and what's your response?
ATTORNEY-GENERAL: We've seen some unverified videos this morning that came on social media. They remain unverified, but I can assure everyone that all operations of the Australian Defence Forces, all operations of the RAAF in the South China Sea and in other parts of South East Asia are conducted in accordance with international law.
REPORTER: One more question for you on AUKUS, does including high tech countries like Japan and Korea send a clear signal to China of our strength and capabilities, and is it enough to counter Beijing's influence?
ATTORNEY-GENERAL: This is a partnership with the United Kingdom and the United States. Of course, as has been reported, there are some other discussions going on, but clearly, this is a very, very important arrangement. It's going to provide submarine technology to Australia. It's going to give access to Australia for technology in the future. We're looking forward in coming years to AUKUS developing.
REPORTER: First and foremost, you're sharing millions of dollars worth of funding for the really critical programs that Blue Light runs. Tell me what's your reaction to today's announcement?
ELISSA SCOTT, CEO BLUE LIGHT VICTORIA: We are so grateful and very excited about the opportunity to now deliver more services and more programs to young people across the state. This funding will allow an additional 1200 young people to benefit from our program. So it's a great news story for us today.
REPORTER: Can you tell us a bit about these programs, how, I guess, how they're designed to help participants?
SCOTT: They are early intervention and prevention programs. So, Blue Light's aim is to really get in early and act early before issues arise. So we have three different types of programs that this funding will now allow us to roll out our one to one mentoring program, so like we've seen here today in Bendigo, with young people who have been really disengaged, and we look at getting mentors involved with them from across police and emergency services. And then we've got two other schools based programs, our Blue Edge program, and also a new program called CoRE, which will really be around connecting young people back into community and actually undertaking some community projects. So it's around their contribution back as well.
REPORTER: Have you seen the lives change for the better of these participants? Can you tell us a bit about how going through an early intervention or prevention program, as you just outlined can, you know, keep these kids on the right track, or put them on the right track?
SCOTT: Often young people come to us when they're really disengaged, they're really disconnected. And what we know about young people is that, in terms of protective factors, they need connection, they need engagement, and they need someone to actually walk alongside them and trust in the fact that they can make some really positive and healthy and safe choices. That's what Blue Light does. We get in there at the earliest opportunity, and we provide initiatives that will allow young people just to thrive and grow and reach their full potential.
REPORTER: That 1200 is not just Bendigo?
SCOTT: That's across the state.
REPORTER: Further to Katie's question there, can you describe to us the backgrounds that some of these kids are coming from, that they actually end up in this funnel, they end up on Blue Light's radar?
SCOTT: As you would know, being a teenager, there's lots of complexities and lots of challenges that you have to work through. Some of our young people have come from families where there has been violence, where there has been other forms of trauma. Sometimes they have just started to use substances in a really not so great way. They might have come to the attention of police and might have had their first interaction with the justice system, or they might just be a bit disengaged from school and not really sure about what life holds for them. A number of our young people have complex mental health issues. So really, for us, it's around we want to really assist a whole lot of diverse young people coming to our programs and receive an opportunity to thrive and grow and to learn new skills so that they can make some really safe and wise decisions in the future.
REPORTER: It was mentioned before that a lot of the people who work with Blue Light are either serving or former police officers. Do you think that it's important that these young people see and engage with police, not just in a judicial sense, in, you know, basically getting the handcuffs slapped on them and ending up in front of court?
SCOTT: Look definitely. Blue Light certainly has a huge volunteer base. We have volunteers from police, but also volunteers from emergency services as well. And the reason that we work with police and emergency services is because they are generally positive community role models, and that is fantastic for young people like we've seen today, for Lily and Jaykob to actually get to know a police officer as a person and to have that deeper understanding about why that is so important in the community, and then to learn from them. It's really fantastic opportunity for young people to break down some of these barriers and to get someone also to invest in them and to care about what they're doing and what they might do into the future.
ENDS
