Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .
Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (8 August) . . Page.. 2596 ..
MR MOORE (continuing):
If you want to have even more good ideas about how to cherish or hold our indigenous population in great respect, have a look at what is happening in New Zealand. I think they are well ahead of us in being able to manage these sorts of issues and manage them well, and there is a lot of the area for us to learn about. Granted, a third of their population is indigenous, so the situation for them is probably more obvious. But it is also a little less desperate. There are many things we can learn from there, whether it is in mental health, corrections or broad health. Mr Wood, I would like to thank you and members of your committee for taking the effort to hand a substantial report to the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Crime rates
MR HIRD: (4.17) I move:
That the Assembly commend the Government for its outstanding success in reducing the rate of crime in the ACT by 12 per cent over the last 12 months, and note that this has been the result of the Government's commitment to resource ACT Policing to undertake a range of crime prevention initiatives including Operation Anchorage which has achieved a reduction of 24 per cent in burglaries of homes and a concerted campaign to reduce motor vehicle theft which has seen a reduction of 29 per cent over the past year.
Mr Deputy Speaker, the period 2000-2001 was by far the most successful year ever for ACT policing. In the 2000-2001 budget this government made a number of bold reforms and commitments with regard to policing in the territory. This government undertook to concentrate on outcomes and results. In particular, the Liberal government targeted burglaries and stolen motor vehicles. It provided extra funding for the establishment of a special task force to concentrate on these areas and to undertake, as everyone now knows, the extremely successful operations known as Chronicle, Dilute and, most recently, Anchorage.
This government even had the guts to give a figure on how much it would aim to reduce burglaries by on the previous years-20 per cent. I put it to any member in this house to give me an example of when, with regard to crime, Labor, while they were in power, ever came out publicly and made such an ambitious commitment. I put it to all members to tell me, in regard to crime, one program that Labor undertook when it was in government that was as ambitious.
What were the results, Mr Deputy Speaker? The results of Operation Anchorage are now well established. In fact, the results have been so outstanding that considerable interest from both national and international jurisdictions has been received, with the common question, "How did you do it?" The answer is we set ourselves an ambitious goal-to reduce burglaries by a fifth. We established a task force of over 40 police and gave them the directive that for the next four months they were to concentrate on reducing the incidence of burglaries and stolen motor vehicles. We gave them the tools, we gave them the opportunity, we gave them direction through the minister, and they responded. We added to this a police intelligence unit that analysed all the information gained by the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .