Page 3345 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 October 2006
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For motor vehicle theft, the ABS figures show a reduction rate of 18.6 per cent from 771 in 2003 to 627 in 2005—an 18.6 per cent reduction. That is a good result. It goes beyond the target of 15 per cent. Again, whilst there are concerns about motor vehicle theft, the trend is downward, and that is consistent with our targets. The strategy sets further reduction targets for the end of this year and by the end of next year. I look forward to seeing those results.
The last thing I want to comment on today—I am not going to take a lot of time—is the issue of police resourcing and budget. This year’s budget saw the single largest increase in policing resources since self-government. In one budget there was funding for an additional 60 police. Overall since 2004, this government will have funded an additional 107 police on the beat.
That is a good record. That is a strong level of investment. There are certainly more police officers than in the previous government. We have done that not based on some anecdotal assessment or on some assertion about what the number should be, but based on a joint agreed study between the Australian Federal Police and the ACT government as to what the required figure was. The study said 107 and we have funded 107. That is a significant commitment.
I am not going to go further today. I think I have outlined quite clearly what the facts are in relation to crime rates in the ACT. There will always be incidents of concern which will trouble all of us. As minister, I certainly hear of incidents that trouble me. I feel sympathy and concern for those residents who face incidents of crime that affect their lives, their wellbeing or their property.
I treat those seriously. But they are not an alternative to looking at crime overall, to looking at the facts and statistics and drawing on those when you make public policy decisions about how we resource and direct our public safety programs, our law enforcement programs and our crime reduction programs here in the ACT.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (5.22): Just on a few points the attorney made, I think there was an interesting selective use of the car thefts. I note some of the other points. If he looks at his quarterly reports, car thefts are up. I think we are back up to about the highest in the nation there. He mentions burglary rates, which have been falling since 2000 for very good reasons—a couple of excellent police operations like Anchorage and Halite, and also section 9D of the Bail Act, because many burglaries are committed by repeat offenders.
That has been particularly effective in terms of ensuring those rates stay at a low level, although that is under threat by a matter I mentioned earlier this morning—that is, the courts going off on a tangent as a result of the government’s Human Rights Act. I thought the intention of section 9D of the Bail Act was quite clear. The Human Rights Act should not affect it but, again, we will wait and see. If that interesting development occurs further, it will affect that.
The only other point I would make in relation to the attorney’s general comments is that, despite what he says, these individual acts terrify people. They are intolerable in a civilised society. They are committed by people who are utterly selfish, and who have no
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