Page 1566 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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the scale. Our rate of claim in the ACT already exceeds that of both country New South Wales and Newcastle. Newcastle is a fairly comparable kind of community. Why should it be that Newcastle - without the advantages of planning, with a higher rate of unemployment than the ACT, and with many other disadvantages the ACT does not experience - should have a lower rate of car theft and car break-in than does the ACT? In my view, Madam Speaker, this is a matter of serious concern.
However, my main concern is about figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in the course of the last couple of weeks. Before members get jocular about this and make amusing comments of the kind Mr Connolly made about these figures, let us consider what they actually say. These figures were released on 29 April. They relate to victimisation rates that record how many people in our community and across Australia claim to have experienced some exposure to crime in a 12-month period. The figures show that in the last 12 months 4.9 per cent of Canberrans - that is, one in 20 - have been victims of crime involving burglary, attempted burglary, motor vehicle theft, robbery, assault or sexual assault. That translates to an actual figure of 11,000 Canberrans in that period of one year. Compared with the 4.9 per cent in the ACT, the national average is 3.7 per cent. I think that figure by itself should give us some concern.
The households which were victims of burglary, attempted burglary and motor vehicle theft represented 9.7 per cent, or one in 10, of Canberra households. That is an actual figure of 10,100 households. Again, that figure of 9.7 per cent in the ACT compares with 8.3 per cent nationally. What is happening in the ACT? Of concern in the ACT is that less than one in three of these attempted break and enters and attempted assaults were actually reported to police; 27.2 per cent of victims of attempted break and enters reported the offence, and only 30.9 per cent of victims of assault reported the offence to police.
Mr Connolly has made much play about the reliability of certain figures. In respect of figures released about a year and a half ago by the Director of Public Prosecutions, he said, "They are not accurate figures because they refer only to figures where we have actually had prosecutions. The AFP figures are more accurate". I suggest to Mr Connolly that the AFP figures are less accurate than these figures. If between a third and a quarter of people are not, in fact, reporting offences to police, AFP figures are not particularly reliable. What is more reliable is the figures which demonstrate what people are actually experiencing - victimisation rates based on direct surveying of people in the community.
The figures show an age breakdown for victims over the age of 15 in our community. They show that 8.9 per cent of people in the ACT between the ages of 15 and 24 were victims of crime; that 5.4 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds were victims of crime; that 4.2 per cent of 35- to 44-year-olds were victims of crime. The rate goes down quite significantly for those over 65. Only 0.05 per cent of people in that age group are victims of crime, according to these figures. What a pity Mr Connolly cannot use them because he does not believe them! "I do not believe them", he said when they were published the other day. Of significant concern is that, of affected households, some 18.1 per cent are single parent households. That is a very important statistic in the International Year of the Family. Of 1,900 single parent households in the ACT, one in five have been victims of crime, according to these figures. Those are the raw figures.
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