Dubbo has been named as one of six locations in the state to hold a counter-terrorism forum as part of the NSW Police Force’s Crowded Places strategy.
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Former Dubbo crime manager and current Counter Terrorism and Special Tactics Command Assistant Commissioner Mick Willing will speak at the forum which will provide advice about managing crowded places.
Assistant Commissioner Mick Willing said Dubbo is one of the major centres in the NSW policing region and it was important to include regional NSW because “everyone’s got a role to play” in protecting crowded places.
“Last year in August, the Federal Government released a national strategy for protected places and these forums are a consequence of that strategy,” he said.
The strategy’s objective is to protect the lives of people working in, using or visiting crowded places by making them more resilient to terrorism.
The forum will be held at the Dubbo RSL club on Wednesday. Local police and members of Assistant Commissioner Willing’s command “will provide advice on issues like the current security environment, information around hostile vehicle mitigation, improvising explosive devices, active armed offenders and those type of threats.”
“We are providing advice to businesses, owner-operators, council and others around a whole range of threats and capabilities, about what they can try to do to keep public spaces in crowded places safe.”
Assistant Commissioner Willing said Dubbo was an important location to hold a forum because “regional NSW have a role to play in countering terrorism, just the same as Sydney does.”
“The national strategy around everyone taking responsibility for addressing the threat to terrorism which can stretch from everything from complicated sophisticated plots through to rudimentary single actors using weapons you can get from your household kitchen.”
He said prevention efforts involved a whole of community response.
“Police, law enforcement and intelligence agencies work really well together in addressing the threat.
“Prevention really does involve all of the community and all of society in addressing the threat of terrorism.
“In the NSW police force we’ve got 20, 000 sets of eyes and ears listening and watching
“In reality we’ve got 7.5 million people in NSW as sets of eyes and ears out there, who have a role to play in helping address the threat.
To register for the event phone 9919 9273.
