Page 828 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 March 2005
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Belconnen again; to Farrer; to Gowrie; and now I am at Wanniassa. If I had been a member of a Neighbourhood Watch committee I would have moved out of that. If I had been an energetic member, then that is the problem that we face. I do not know the answer to that. I think we need a community response to that. It is something that we do recognise.
Mr Speaker, one of the things Mr Mulcahy raises, of course, is the importance of the community in partnership with the police to make sure that our community is looked after. The very essence of intelligence-led policing, intelligence-driven policing, is, in fact, that partnership with the police. Whether or not the Crime Stoppers line is going to work depends on the community using it. Neighbourhood Watch, in fact, is one of those examples of how the community can work in partnership. And we have the results.
You might recall, in fact, recently, Mr Speaker, seven people were pinched for doing burnouts. What happened was that people thought the police were not doing anything. In fact, they were collecting the information. As I have said to Mr Pratt numerous times in correspondence, encourage people to call Crime Stoppers because they are adding to a body of evidence and then a pattern emerges and the police strike. When it came to these particular burnouts and the police struck, there were seven vehicles impounded. I thought that was a fairly good result.
We also note, in the context of the Stuart flats, exactly the same sort of thing. There was stolen property recovered. The people who were there were rather anti-social. They were pinged by people who rang Crime Stoppers. It is that sort of thing Neighbourhood Watch can assist in.
Mr Stefaniak talked about having a dozen Neighbourhood Watch committees. My information is there are 62 of them. Sixty-two of any sort of committee requires an awful lot of resources to actually visit every time. But I do take his point. In fact, we have the attendance of ACT Policing. A Neighbourhood Watch liaison officer talks with executive members at conferences on Neighbourhood Watch programs, making sure that the ACT community is aware of the latest trends and practices around Australia. It is nothing unique; crime is not unique to the ACT. The AFP/ANU policing in the 21st century project focusing on the local Neighbourhood Watch program will add academic expertise to initiative, strengthening the local scheme, we hope.
Of course we all know that Neighbourhood Watch forms part of the key performance indicators of the ACT government’s property crime reduction strategy for 2004-07. Given the size and number of the groups, though, to improve communications, ACT Policing, in conjunction with Neighbourhood Watch, hold monthly mega meetings. I do not know if members are aware of this. These mega meetings provide an opportunity for a large group of Neighbourhood Watch members, drawn from a number of groups, to attend a mega meeting for information gathering and ideas exchange that will help in the enhancement of community safety. The next mega meeting is on tomorrow at the ANU and is hosted by ACT Policing crime prevention. At this stage, there are 50 participants who have indicated their attendance and there will be presentations from several keynote speakers.
Improving communication between Neighbourhood Watch and ACT Policing has been a high priority in enhancing the effectiveness of the neighbourhood safety. I do not think
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