Page 826 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 March 2005
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instances do not attend at all. It has always been a bit of a problem but, when you go back probably a decade or so, often at every meeting there was a police officer. That was cut back to probably once every two meetings or so. But now it seems that it is pretty rare to actually find any sort of regular police attendance at all. That does tend to dispirit the Neighbourhood Watch people.
I am not at all casting any blame there necessarily on the police. We all know the police are understaffed. We all know the police are underresourced. I am not going to berate the minister too much about this at this particular time. But I certainly hope that, even with a tight budget, this most important area of government, the policing of the ACT, is attended to and we see more police operating in the ACT so that not only can that assist their general operations but will assist, in a spin-off way, to have more police available to go and assist at the Neighbourhood Watch meetings.
After all, the first duty of any government is the security of their citizens. For a state or territory government, that means a strong and well-supported police force with sufficient numbers to actually do its job. So, I will leave that there. But I would certainly hope the minister is in there batting, and I would certainly hope we see some improvement in this budget in terms of policing the ACT. We all know we are under strength. We all know we are miles below the national average and, obviously, if steps are taken to improve that, that will have a spin-off effect in terms of Neighbourhood Watch.
I have seen instances over my years in Canberra where people in Neighbourhood Watch have actually managed to have crimes prevented by timely reporting to police. I have seen instances where an alert member of Neighbourhood Watch and an alert member of the community called the police and the police attended and nabbed the perpetrators actually in the act. Areas that have strong a Neighbourhood Watch often have significantly less crime. And this was certainly so when the organisation started in the territory and records were kept, which indicated there was a very significant drop in the first few years. For a number of reasons, that probably is not quite the same now.
I think, if you look through the stats, where you see a strong Neighbourhood Watch you will see a lot fewer incidents of the crime that concerns people in our community the most and that affects people in our community, such as people flogging cars; breaking into homes; vandalism; the more petty thefts; sadly, some assaults, too, in neighbourhoods. Those sorts of crimes, which you see in the Neighbourhood Watch reports, are the ones that really directly impact on people in the suburbs and are the ones where a good, strong Neighbourhood Watch can be a real deterrent and can provide a real crime prevention service.
So it is always good to see a new Neighbourhood Watch set up. I certainly commend the good burghers of Isaacs for setting up this Neighbourhood Watch. It is good to see local businesses get involved. I think, in the ones I have seen in Belconnen, there are always a couple of businesses that sponsor the newsletter and that assist, even in a small way—it all helps—to keep these organisations going. Well done to Karen Rush Real Estate for getting involved in Neighbourhood Watch.
I certainly commend my remarks to the minister for police especially. I would also encourage businesses to actually get behind Neighbourhood Watch. You do not need to do a huge amount, but if you help sponsor a newsletter in your particular area you are
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