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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2648 ..

The Canberra Times article in September of last year, you will recall, demonstrated very significant negative statistics about how unsafe people felt in their homes, and certainly in shopping centres after dusk. You will recall that the poll feedback lamented the absence of a police presence. The number of emails and letters received by my office and others has indicated substantial concern for about 18 months now. This clearly reflects a nationwide trend. I will refer to data later to illustrate this point.

I have said before—and it is worth stressing again—that there is no getting around the fact that, while society has become increasingly more sophisticated, richer, more clever and more comfortable, statistics prove that, nationwide, there has been a concurrent rise in crime beyond the natural growth of expected activity and commensurate with an increasing population. I will mention those statistics later.

I repeat that I believe this to be a worrying trend. It is not just a matter of increasing rates of crime, it is the disturbing increase in criminal intensity—the increase in mindless vandalism, the increasing levels of destruction and the increasing levels of violence by people perpetrating crimes just for the hell of it. There is no respect and no fear of the consequences by many more people now than was once the case. Early this year, residents in Jackie Howe Crescent, Macarthur, were adamant that the level of vandalism in their street, particularly firecracker vandalism, had increased by about 20 per cent annually over some years. There were destroyed letterboxes and ripped-out gardens; there was damage to local parks and local barbecue facilities, et cetera.

In March shopkeepers in Chisholm told me that the level of vandalism in their shopping centre had gradually escalated over three years and was now significantly reduced, but only due to their private security initiatives. They cannot stop the growing number of “burnouts” and “wheelies” occurring around the precinct, particularly at the junction of Proctor and Mead Streets, where young fools turn up regularly, dump oil onto the road surface and then broadside through the slick at up to 100 kilometres an hour. This is done in a 60 kilometres an hour residential zone, in broad daylight, with no fear of consequences.

Shopkeepers in Isaacs and Torrens in April this year were reporting to me the same growing crime rates in their areas, including multiple break-ins. At Isaacs, they are sick of seeing the same young people in the shopping centre, trading drugs from their cars in the evenings. They are thankful that the police have tried to respond but lament that they have not been able to stop these cocky young men from continuing their trade. The owner of Video 2000 at Mawson and the proprietor of the Shell Service Station at Braddon have told me they are sick of being held up at syringe and knifepoint and are waiting for their first firearm experience. I guess it will be something to tell the grandkids about.

These reports and these sentiments are repeated across the ACT. I do not believe the community is being unfair or misjudging the situation when it perceives the significant increase in crime and deterioration in community safety it is feeling. Nor do I believe the community is unfair when it is constantly saying that it does not see enough of its police force. While crime statistics show a number of successes, they also show a gradual incline in general level of criminality in the ACT.

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