My name's Johnny Tran. I'm a Senior Constable of police.
I am a Multicultural Liaison Officer.
Being Victoria Police, we are a state police force
so what that means is we're not part of the military,
Federal Police, or Immigration.
We assist the community. We are here to protect you and make sure that you're safe.
We stop people from breaking the law and we also prosecute by taking people to court
or giving them fines as well if they break the law.
The purpose today is to engage with the community
but also to make people aware of things they may not have been aware of before.
There's lots of questions about policing
but about laws in general as well.
This is what we would normally wear when you see us out in the street.
You may see that we have other things on our belt
and a gun there as well.
These are things to help protect us
but also help protect the public as well.
I was born in a refugee camp
and my family were lucky enough to come to Australia
and live a life here, create a life,
so it gives me a great deal of joy to actually try and guide some of these new and emerging communities
in some of the pitfalls that may have happened in the past
and try and help them through that process.
As you can see, I'm actually Cambodian.
I was brought up here, I was not born in Australia.
You can see here that we also, in the police force, we encourage equity.
We believe everyone needs to be treated with dignity and respect.
There's a lot of really negative perceptions about policing in general,
depending on their experiences in their previous countries
that they've migrated from.
Some of those experiences can be very traumatic
and it makes people not want to report anything to police
and fearful of us
so it's actually quite enjoyable to try and break down those barriers
and say, well, this is how we do it here
and this is something totally different to what you may have been used to in the past.
If you call 000, it's a free service, you're not going to be charged for this.
Reporting a crime will not affect your immigration status or anything to do with immigration.
We're 24 hours a day so it doesn't matter if it's 3am in the morning.
You can still contact police.
There are interpreters available so you just need to say when you ring 000...
Burmese
and sometimes there might be Karen, Burmese Karen, or Hakha Chin.
You can say that as well.
Now this one is about driving with people who are also drinking
and then intend on driving.
What I’d suggest is that if you do intend on drinking, that you don't drive.
There are some heavy fines. You can lose your licence
or you can receive an imprisonment sentence as well.
Now we have a special speaker here today.
Senior Constable Deidre Bell is here.
She's from the Family Violence Unit.
She will talk to you about the Family Violence section.
Violence in any form is not okay
so if you're a victim of violence in any form,
whether it be someone in the street that you don't know
or whether it be family violence in the home
where this violence may occur,
that's not okay at all.
Any reports will be taken seriously
and it will be investigated by police.
They don't accept violence at all in any form.
My name is Deidre Bell.
I'm a Senior Constable of police.
I help people with intervention orders and family violence matters.
Now, it's anything that is physically or sexually abusive,
emotionally or psychologically,
or if somebody is yelling at you, verbally yelling,
hitting, screaming at you,
constantly putting you down,
taking your money, threatening you
as in "I'm going to kill you," "I'm going to punch you,"
and if you feel fear from that family member
that is family violence.
If another family member damages your property,
if another family members threatens to hurt your pets
or does hurt your pets, that’s family violence.
This is not something we take lightly.
Every time we attend a family violence incident, we do a report.
Family violence includes forced marriages.
They are also illegal under Australian federal law since 2013.
And if you're found guilty of doing this
it's 4 to 7 years imprisonment.
You can't be forced to marry someone if you don't want to.