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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 3 Hansard (6 March) . . Page.. 604 ..
MR STEFANIAK (continuing):
Total offences reported by the Australian Federal Police have fallen sharply since the introduction of amendments to the Bail Act on May 30. Total offences fell to 3,303 in August.
Mr Clack goes on to say:
This compares with 4,178 in June, 2000, and 4,980 in September, 1999. Under new provisions in the Act, the presumption of bail was removed for repeat offenders of serious offences.
He went on to say:
Burglaries across the ACT dropped to 361 in August compared with a high of 856 in November, 1999. Burglary rates averaged 500 to 600 a month last year.
He went on to say that the rates for some other crimes had also dropped.
Of course, burglary is a crime that concerns everyone in the community. Most people have probably either been burgled or know someone who has. This particular piece of legislation has been singled out by the police, and they continue do so. No doubt they have told the new police minister and, I would hope, the Attorney, how successful it has been.
On 13 January this year, there was another article in the Canberra Times by Mr Clack which said that burglary rates in Canberra have dropped 23 per cent, armed robberies are down 27 per cent, property damage is down 17 per cent, and motor vehicle theft is down 16 per cent. He said:
ACT Chief Police Officer John Murray and Commander Ben McDevitt credited the sustained fall in crime rates-which fell 12 per cent overall-to new policing strategies and to greatly strengthened ACT bail laws, which removed a presumption of bail for repeat offenders in May. Earlier bail laws left police powerless to control individual high offenders-"one-man crime waves"-who continued to reoffend despite being arrested on numerous occasions.
Operation Anchorage was itself highly successful and, combined with improvements to the Bail Act, that type of operation has helped to reduce crime in our community. What that highlighted was the importance of this particular piece of legislation. There was one individual, out of the 232 people who police know as recidivists, who appeared four times in court and was granted bail each time, then committed more offences, and was bailed again. The fact that it would be very difficult for that to happen under the Bail Act speaks volumes, and those figures are important.
The Attorney recently tabled the September 2001 quarter crime stats. Some examples include: burglary and breaking and entering: September 1999, 2,444; September 2000, down a bit to 1,552; and September last year, 1,230. There are some other figures there, but I know the time, Mr Speaker. I think these show enough. These figures supplied by the government and the police and quoted in the paper quite clearly show how successful that legislation has been. I do note, and graciously acknowledge the fact, that the present government actually supported the substantial May amendments, although they did not support those back in August of last year.
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