Dave Tollner (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Recently there have been plenty of stories in the local Darwin media about a crime epidemic that has been sweeping the northern suburbs of Darwin. I was a bit concerned to read these reports and I decided to send out a survey to constituents in the suburbs of Karama and Malak—suburbs that seem to be the main hot spot for these concerns. I was quite surprised at the level of response that I received. I received a huge number of calls, letters and emails, all from people saying that crime gangs, hoons and drunken itinerants were out of control in their suburbs.

I decided to host a community crime forum in those two suburbs. I tied the forum in with a visit from the federal Minister for Justice and Customs, Chris Ellison, who was visiting Darwin at the time. I asked him to come along to the forum so that he could hear the concerns firsthand. The main issues that were raised by local residents were gang violence, youth gangs, street crime, vandalism, hooning in cars, graffiti, drunken itinerants in parks and, of course, the fact that there are not enough police on the beat and that police are taking too long to attend incidents.

The Territory Labor government at the last Territory election promised to be very tough in the area of law and order. They promised an extra 200 police, but I am informed by the police association that, while they may well have employed 200 extra police, more than that number have left the force because of the conditions that they are employed under. So, although there have been 200 more police employed, the numbers of police in the Northern Territory have not increased at all—and I am not even talking about remote areas here. So, by failing to tackle crime in the northern suburbs, it is clear that the Northern Territory government has failed the local community.

To decisively deal with this problem, we also need community involvement. Over the last 12 or 18 months, I have been working very closely with Neighbourhood Watch and have assisted our Northern Territory representative, Mr Ken Mildred—who has been appointed as the inaugural president of Neighbourhood Watch Australasia—in his dealings with the minister. He has been very generous with his time and has assisted me in meeting many members of Neighbourhood Watch. I have also met with many other community groups. I have assisted these groups to receive funding from the federal government’s Community Crime Prevention grants to improve community safety.

As a start, Mission Australia in Darwin has received around $148,000 to educate young people on the consequences of crime and to help break the cycle of crime, Anglicare has received $75,000 to deliver innovative self-defence classes for young women and the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency has received $120,000 for rehabilitation programs for family violence offenders. This is only a start. There is much more to be done. I will continue to pressure the Northern Territory government to increase police patrols in our suburbs and to provide more equipment for law enforcement agencies.

I found it quite interesting that, following the crime forum in the northern suburbs, more police magically appeared on the beat in those particular suburbs, a mobile police station was set up and crime levels were reduced—simply by holding a community crime forum in those suburbs. I think this points out that, where you do shine a light on the Northern Territory government’s inadequacies, they will respond. By working with community groups and local residents, we can make a real difference—and that is what I aim to do during the rest of the time I spend in this place. Crime is something that should be controlled and needs to be controlled. I am very keen to work with local residents to ensure that we can control these issues. (Time expired)