A school zone speed camera in Sydney’s sleepy lower north shore suburb of Lavender Bay has been awarded the New South Wales Police Force Valour Award for distinguished service, receiving a three-week ticker tape parade.

“This brave officer has raised more revenue than everybody else in the force combined,” a NSW police spokesperson said. “This camera is an example that crime pays… and it pays well!”

The officer has been attacked multiple times in its career, and was almost decommissioned in 2015 after vandals beheaded the camera, and locals have expressed their disagreement with the award.

“What a joke,” one Lavender Bay local said. “You’d have to be a mathematician to calculate what speed you’re meant to go in the camera’s location after factoring in the time of day, road works, school holidays and the weather. I once got a fine for simply walking past the camera.”

Lavender Bay police invited The Sydney Sentinel to their clubhouse/station for a lobster sausage sizzle.

“It would be impossible for us to spend all the money this officer raises,” one constable said in an interview conducted from the station’s rooftop hot tub. “Before I could even finish that last sentence, our brave man in the field would have raised another $300,000 – that sort of cash would take any regular officer a whole afternoon of bribe collecting.”

Lavender Bay police have said they will be putting replica speed cameras on every street in a display of gratitude for the award-winning officer.