Page 257 - Week 01 - Thursday, 18 February 1993
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He was specifically referring, I submit, to the comments made by Mrs Carnell. He went on to say later on in his report to me:
Crime statistics record that, proportionally, young males are the group most likely to be victims of violent crime.
So Mrs Carnell was out there whipping up hysteria amongst women, old and young, and this is the sort of reaction that we get from the media to those sorts of claims. Madam Speaker, this is clearly a matter of a bunch of greedy politicians trying to whip up mass hysteria over a matter which really does not exist. I would accept that the assistant commissioner and the high ranking police officers would know more about policing in the Territory than any of you lot, and I think you would accept that too. Would you accept that? I think they would accept that. Those officers say:
Inaccurate statements made by public figures have the potential to cause unnecessary alarm and unwarranted fear of crime amongst groups such as the elderly and women.
You must accept that they know what they are talking about. That is what Acting Assistant Commissioner Stoll said. Unfortunately there are elements within the community and the association who have another agenda and are more concerned about heightening feelings of uncertainty in the community, even to high hysteria, which I do not think is in the interests of the police or the people who are served, because it does not accord with reality.
There are the chief police officer's comments about all of this stuff. He goes on to say that since the reduction of service three weeks ago there has been nothing untoward occur as a consequence of that decision. In fact in the past three weeks the police and community have coped with the reductions quite well. That is what the assistant commissioner said. When asked the question, "The AFPA is saying you are not coping. Why are you at odds with the people?", the assistant commissioner said that one wonders at their motives. The facts are that they are coping and the advice from all officers is that the safety of the people in Canberra has not changed. So there you go, Madam Speaker. That is the truth of the matter. The assistant commissioner, the chief police officer, makes it very clear that there is no problem in the ACT. He is the person who says that public safety has not changed. Public safety has not changed, yet the Liberals say that it has. I believe the chief police officer, and I think most of the people of the ACT would.
The guilty parties in all of this are the Liberals opposite and some of Dennis Stevenson's mates, too, because they got on the political band wagon, trying to pinch a few votes off the Liberals on police issues with their stunt over here outside the North Building, which failed. The guilty parties are the people who have tried to milk political mileage out of this issue by creating unnecessary hysteria and fear out there in the community - fear in the community which they hope will last through the election. Fortunately the Canberra community are far
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