Page 1498 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2006
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protecting our community. They do so with very little assistance from government, very little assistance from the courts and very little assistance from other areas, and I think that is most unfortunate.
Not long ago I talked to some senior police who told me that in 1980 there used to be five cars at Woden. You are certainly going to get a wonderful police presence with that number of cars. People were able to see the police. Now the number is down to about one or two. I get complaints from people and, indeed, from police that we have only got one car to cover Belconnen. Whilst that is nothing new—I can recall back in 1990 hearing the occasional complaint that there were only two cars for all of Tuggeranong and that sometimes it was down to one—these are now regular complaints. You do not have to be Einstein to work it out. The numbers say it. If your police force is basically the same as it was in 1980 and your population has almost doubled, and the level of some types of crime, such as armed robbery—and we all know the reasons for that—has significantly increased, then you have a problem and it makes it that much harder for those dedicated men and women who put their lives on the line every day to do their job of properly protecting our community.
Let me give an example of the problems faced in my electorate. Over the school holidays at Christmas time and February there were a lot of problems at the Charnwood shops. Some young hoons were literally abusing and being quite aggressive to some women customers in a computer shop. It was quite a scary situation. The fellow in the computer shop called the police who said they would attend. After no-one turned up after half an hour, he called them again and they said that there were some other incidents they had to attend to. Luckily he rang up a mate of his who came down and just basically stood in the shop. His presence stopped these young hoons from continuing to do too much damage. Finally, after an hour and an half from the first call, the police were able to attend. The person who made the call is not blaming the police. They were flat out and they told him what they were doing. They just told him, “Look, there is no-one else available and we are the first car that can actually get there.” I think that is indicative of this problem.
Again, the newsagent at Charnwood had some problems. This person, who has since sold up because he is getting on in years and has other interests, indicated that he had called the police on a number of occasions and was very happy with the assistance he received. However, he said that in a couple of instances the police had to send a car from Civic because there was just nothing available in Belconnen. Again, it gets down to numbers, and it is just so crucially important for us—
Mr Seselja: To see the reports.
MR STEFANIAK: Certainly we need to see the reports, and that is what Mr Pratt is asking for. We have heard what the minister had to say about the functional review but the government is very coy in showing this Assembly a lot of the documents it has trumpeted and which are mentioned in paragraphs (2) and (3) of Mr Pratt’s motion. I can see no problem with the government showing these documents. I think in the past there have been instances of governments tabling these types of documents for the edification of members. The ability of our police force to protect the citizens of the ACT and the wherewithal given to them by government to do that are crucially important for governance in the ACT.
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