Page 2382 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 16 September 1992
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burglaries, arson and car theft - during depression, recession and hard economic times. There is no doubt that the crime rate is a corollary of the fact that we are suffering from one of the greatest recessions since the early 1900s. Notwithstanding who is in government, when times are tough more people tend to turn to crime than at other times. So what we are saying is that we should look at the relationship between high unemployment levels and a high crime rate.
Mr Berry: Ditch the "frightpack".
MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Berry interjects. I have tried very hard not to become political; but, if Mr Berry wants to interject about Fightback, let me remind him that a Federal Labor Government has been in power since 1983. It is a Federal Labor Government that has given us the high unemployment. Coincidentally, since 1983 burglaries have doubled, Mr Berry.
Mr Lamont: Six a year is double three a year.
MR DE DOMENICO: Australia-wide, Mr Lamont. Because burglaries in Australia have doubled since 1983, since the high unemployment level given to us by a Federal Labor Government, one can therefore assume, Mr Berry, that if we had less unemployment we would have less crime and fewer burglaries.
If we want to get political, let us take the gloves off and get political; but I am trying very hard not to. When there are high crime rates for burglary, it is not only the people being burgled who suffer. The more insurance claims there are, the higher the premiums become for everybody. There is a monetary suffering by everybody in the community once crime rates go up. Therefore, it becomes a community problem of great importance. The Liberal Party is not attacking anybody; we are not blaming anybody. What we are saying is that we have a problem. Let us acknowledge that we have a problem and let us see whether we can fix it. If by fixing it we can also employ a heck of a lot more people who are unemployed and fix two problems at the one time, let us do it.
People on the opposite side of the house should know that the majority of the so-called petty crimes that have occurred - there are a lot of them - are usually committed by people under the age of 20. So we are talking about the youth unemployment level. The higher the youth unemployment level, the higher the rate of what people, unless they are directly involved, consider to be minor crimes. All one needs to do is go to one's letterbox and read the information put out by Neighbourhood Watch.
In the suburb where I live, Gowrie, we know that in the month of August, for example, there were 27 incidents which the police were called in to investigate. That is in one suburb alone. A lot of those incidents were probably altercations, but the fact that the police were called out 27 times in one month in one suburb convinces me that there is a problem. I agree with Mrs Grassby. There are lies, damn lies and statistics. We can stand up here and accuse one another of having a cheap shot or, as Mr Connolly did, of being Tories. But the fact is that even Mr Crispin, QC, and the community say that, notwithstanding how safe Canberra is - we acknowledge that we are one of the safest communities in this country - if we can become even safer still, it would be better for our citizens.
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