Page 4828 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 November 2017
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Even if we just look at the built form, the Civic police station is dilapidated. There are meeting rooms where water gets in when it rains. The Gungahlin police station is the smallest police station I have ever visited and yet that region would have to be rivalling Belconnen in population now. There is plenty more that this government needs to be doing. But all I am asking them to do is to consider keeping up with inflation in the funding for this organisation, which is intended to keep us safe, which is a basic part of state government, a very basic function.
Calls demanding police resources are up by 16 per cent, robberies are up by 53 per cent, offences against a person are up by 14.8 per cent, drug-driving is up by 160 per cent, and arson is up by 12.5 per cent. On a total funding per capita basis, the ACT government’s baseline police funding is lower than the baseline anywhere else in Australia. Many constituents have spoken with me about how they feel the government is not serious about crime. These constituents feel that the police are held back by their lack of funding and their scarce resources. They get the same comment when they call on the police: that they are under massive pressure.
The ACT government, to date, has not even considered our anti-consorting laws. I hope things are about to change. Despite the Chief Police Officer’s support for them and calls for them which say that this is what is absolutely required in order for her to be able to do her job and for her organisation to do their job, the ACT government is somehow compromised and thinks that it knows better than the police who are on the ground dealing with bikies and other criminals every day. If the ACT were able to have preventative laws like other states do, the territory would not be as vulnerable to bikie gang violence as it is today. We already have a problem with overcrowding in the AMC. We do not need more crimes committed so that we can lock more people up.
We need to stop severe organised crime, serious organised crime, occurring. My family came to Australia from Italy to avoid living like this because in their towns and in their places people could not stand up to the mafia and could not stand up to the camorra. We need to stop these things happening before the six-year-old is not trying to put out the fire with the garden hose but is lying dead on the pavement.
The government should support this motion and should show police and the people of Canberra that it supports them. The police are under increasing pressure; the funding has not kept up. It is the most basic service that a state government should provide and I am disappointed that the minister tries to paint the picture that there is nothing wrong in this territory while the place falls apart.
Question put:
That the amendment be agreed to.
The Assembly voted—
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