Page 2381 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 16 September 1992
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The annual report from the Director of Public Prosecutions confirms the severity of the problems. Let me quote again from Mr Crispin's report. His report is a refreshingly unbureaucratic one. We are not suggesting that Mr Crispin is some Liberal Party apparatchik, or some Tory, as Mr Connolly wants to call people from time to time. Mr Crispin says:
The most disturbing aspect of the year was the continued escalation in the crime rate.
That was said by Mr Crispin, our Director of Public Prosecutions, not some member of the Liberal Party. No wonder he says that. The number of charges laid under the Crimes Act has almost doubled in the past three years. There is no denying that. These figures are in Mr Crispin's report - in 1988-89, 2,854; in 1991-92, 5,523. These are not my figures; they are Mr Crispin's figures. The total number of defendants in the ACT in 1988-89 was 8,290, and in 1991-92 it was 15,715 - nearly double.
Mrs Grassby: The police have been able to catch them all. Isn't that wonderful? That is why the police are so good. They have been able to catch them all.
MR DE DOMENICO: It does not matter whether we catch them, Mrs Grassby. I am delighted that we catch them. We catch some of them. The point is, though, that the fact that crime is occurring in the ACT is something that I think we can bipartisanly put our minds to. The drug offences figures are also very interesting. Drug offences have also increased substantially. They have gone from 246 in 1988-89 to 546 in 1991-92. That is an increase of about 122 per cent. That is a substantial increase, in anyone's language.
Mr Crispin's report said that it had been hoped that drug offences would recede after the previous financial year, which set a new record for drug prosecutions - almost twice as high as the previous record. The report said:
Unfortunately, that has not occurred and there has actually been a further increase. It has long been recognised that the drug trade is a spur to other serious crimes.
We are all aware of that. He went on:
It is an insidious trade which brings great human misery to the community.
No-one can deny that what Mr Crispin says is true. We are not saying that it is the fault of the Labor Government, a Liberal government or any government. We are saying that the problem does exist. Let us acknowledge that it exists and look at why it exists and what we can do to try to fix it. As Mr Humphries said, notwithstanding a 122 per cent increase in the drug related problem, the population increase is only 6.5 per cent. It seems that people ought to be expressing some sort of concern about that.
The DPP report is just one of the indicators of the size of the problem. As Mr Humphries said quite correctly, there are other reports such as the police reports and the reports of the NRMA and other insurance companies. As someone who had a lot to do with the insurance industry over many years, let me also say to the house that there is always an increase in crime - especially
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