David Littleproud’s address at the national press club has moved to the question and answer period.

He is asked:

We know nationally, statistics show that property crime has gone down in large parts of the country, and yet, it has been a big focus. Is the Coalition capitalising on perceptions of fear when it comes to crime? Or is this a reality that you’re seeing when you’re campaigning?

Littleproud:

Respectfully, ask that of the 70-year-old woman in Bendigo who got on a train to watch her famous Richmond Tigers play and was abused by a young lady physically on a train.

Ask her that it. Are we simply going to work on a society predictated on statistics? The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. This has a responsibility not just to state but to federal and local governments and I’m seeing local governments around the country leaning into this because they have the pride and passion of their communities and I don’t want to see the standard of their communes slip. And you know what, in Bendigo alone, for $360,000, we upgraded I think 57 CCTV cameras.

The state wasn’t going to do it. The council doesn’t have the capacity to do it. So why wouldn’t we, a program that we ran and ran successfully that took the proceeds of crime and reinvested them back to community infrastructure to keep Australians safe. And where there are intersections of law, particularly with communications, then why wouldn’t we do that? Why wouldn’t we?

We’ve all got a responsibility. And it’s not just Government’s responsibility. We have to lead. But as a society, and whether you talk about domestic violence today, it’s not just government that has the responsibility – every one of us does. And I think as a society, we’ve sometime passed our responsibility and aggregated it to the state. We all have a responsibility. I have a responsibility as a father to talk to my boys about what’s right and what’s wrong, setting the standard. And it’s not just money that will fix it. It’s us. It’s us that will fix it. Whether you’re a politician, whether you’re a role model in a sports club, we’ve all got a role to play.