Page 882 - Week 03 - Thursday, 30 March 2006
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taken, and letters received. That information was then complied and put into a letter that I have today submitted to the government.
I accept that a significant number of the incidents I am reporting may not have been reported to police. We are not complaining that police have not acted upon those. But we are saying that the combination of incidents reported and those that I am describing now detail an environment of insufficient police presence to deter crime. Clearly it is an environment that the police need to do something about, and the police need all the support the government can give them.
MR SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (4.11): On behalf of Mr Hargreaves, I am pleased to take part in this discussion this afternoon. Mr Pratt’s matter of public importance focuses on the state of community policing in shopping centre precincts in the ACT. If you listened for long enough to the way Mr Pratt carries on in this place with overblown and inflated allegations about community safety in Canberra, you would think that we were living in the middle of New York in the 1980s.
I think it is appropriate that we put some context and some realism into the hyperbole that we hear all too often from Mr Pratt. He is only interested in scaring people. He is only interested in making people feel unsafe in their own homes. He is only interested in beating the law and order drum for his own political benefit.
Let us turn to the matter of community policing at shopping centre precincts. Shopping centres obviously are a natural hub for business activity and, as a result, social interaction across all levels of the community. Any place where people congregate in large numbers, such as suburban or town centre shopping areas, can unfortunately become a focus for crime and antisocial behaviour at various times. Canberra is no different from any other city in this context. The subsequent concentration of some types of crime in these areas can give rise to a false impression about the level of crime overall in Canberra, and this is the point that I am seeking to make. Mr Pratt seeks to make a false impression about the overall level of criminal activity in Canberra.
The fact is that Canberra remains one of Australia’s safest cities. Crime rates in the ACT have decreased since 2001. From the year 2000-01 to the year 2004-05 the following reductions in reported crime have occurred. Overall offences against the person have decreased by 11.5 per cent. Overall offences against property have decreased by 27.8 per cent. Total offences have decreased by 20.9 per cent. Those are the statistics, Mr Speaker. I do not know what Mr Pratt is referring to. These are the figures issued by the Australian Federal Police.
Naturally these figures are still little consolation to those who have become victims of crime, particularly where that crime has impacted on their livelihood, as is sometimes the case with small business operators. It is for this reason that ACT Policing attaches a high priority to responding effectively to crime and antisocial behaviour and proactively building closer ties with the community. ACT Policing employs an intelligence-led policing approach—something Mr Pratt could learn from—in which police patrols target
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