Page 897 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 30 March 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Connolly: What was the total for that financial year?
MR HUMPHRIES: I will come to that. There is a dispute between the Minister and me, I suspect, about the difference between incidents and offences.
Mr Connolly: Well, what was the total offences in the annual report?
MR HUMPHRIES: I will come back to that. The point is that the difference between the two concepts being employed here, between incidents and offences, is a very difficult one to unravel. The fact of life is that incidents indicate all occasions where a complaint has been made to the police. Naturally, in those circumstances, we have to expect that some people will complain about a car being stolen when in fact there is no car that has been stolen. On the other hand, the category of offences is not always an accurate way of looking at the figures either. For example, if three youths steal a car, I suspect - and the Minister can correct me if I am wrong - that that will count as three offences, but only one car has been stolen.
Mr Connolly: If they are caught.
MR HUMPHRIES: If they are caught, obviously. So, with respect, neither incidents nor offences are an entirely accurate way of dealing with the statistical analysis of these problems. What would be more accurate perhaps would be the total number of incidents reported and confirmed in terms of the number of cars stolen. I would suggest that it is silly to look at a single car being stolen as three offences. That does not build up any accurate picture of how many cars are going missing in the ACT.
Mr Connolly: But that is the way the national figures do it. That is what happened with the figure you gave me yesterday; it is offences. That is how we measure these things.
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, there is a difference in those two figures, Mr Connolly, because those are offences for each house broken into. There are separate charges laid for each house that is broken into, are there not? A person is not charged with breaking and entering for 15 houses, is he?
Mr Connolly: No, but if there are two people they are charged with two offences for each house.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, but only one house has been broken into.
Mr Connolly: We measure offences.
MR HUMPHRIES: All right. Madam Speaker, the incidents figures which were published in the Canberra Times last weekend indicate very clearly that the rate at the end of the 1991-92 financial year was 1,553 incidents for the year. That is the information that is made available. I take it that that is not disputed. That is an average of about 129 incidents per month. That is worked out over the whole year, not just over a six-month period. Take the first six months, or even the first eight months, whatever you want to take, of this financial year. We do not have incidents. Incidents figures were published in the Canberra Times.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .