Page 4026 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 24 October 1990
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However, we are facing a serious problem in funding. We are going to have to face that problem in a very straightforward manner and try to determine what is the best way we can spend our money in order to reduce criminal activity in the ACT.
The other measure that I have put forward - apart from point 5, which is a normal, general, catch any matter that comes to the attention of the committee concerned with this - is the social ramifications of community involvement in crime prevention schemes. I think it is quite important for us to realise that, whatever happens in terms of our decisions, there are broad social ramifications to everything we do. There will be a social reaction in terms of any suggestion, for example, to reduce policing as an after effect of clearing the clean-up rate. It may well be that those hard decisions need to be taken. Mr Speaker, I recommend this motion to the Assembly.
MR CONNOLLY (11.29): I rise fairly briefly to support Mr Moore's proposition and to commend him on a very thoughtful and valuable contribution to this debate. This could perhaps be one of the most important tasks that this Assembly has yet assigned to a committee. The agreement which the Attorney-General signed in July of this year with the Commonwealth to provide contract policing for this Territory, which was supported by the Opposition, was of fundamental importance to this Territory. Its financial magnitude is clear. We will be spending, in the next financial year, some $54m, or probably more, of public money on providing policing for this Territory. It is essential that the community be satisfied that they are getting the best value for their dollar.
It is almost expected in this chamber, when concern turns to the police contract, that Assembly members will all make suitably flattering comments on the Australian Federal Police for the service they provide. I suppose we are not essentially departing from that, but the Canberra community must be concerned at the report in this morning's paper referred to by Mr Moore. That was the Institute of Criminology publication The size of the crime problem in Australia launched yesterday at a function in Brisbane at which, I think, the Attorney was present.
We, perhaps, have come to expect in Canberra that when we compare ourselves to national averages - and there is a whole range of services - we will come better than average. It is cause for real concern, when we look at the clear-up rate for offences, that the ACT is, in fact, the worst in Australia, with a 20.83 per cent clear-up rate, compared to a national average of 30 per cent. One must seriously wonder why it is that the ACT is less well served than anywhere else in Australia.
I thought that, perhaps, one of the simple explanations for that might be that we are an enclave within New South Wales. Motor vehicle thefts figured prominently in that
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