Mr DUNHAM - 2003-02-26
How can the Labor government have any confidence in the crime statistics when, according to today’s NT News, many business people are not reporting crimes to police? Secondly, since this reluctance by business to report crimes confirms that they have no faith in your government, what measures are going to be put in place to restore that confidence?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, it is wonderful to get a question from the opposition. I have been waiting for about three sittings now. It is common to all statistical records, right round this country and in any similarly developed country around the world, for there to be a level of unreported offences within the system. Generally, that is estimated - certainly in Australia - that around 30% to a third of the total crime in the community will not be reported. There are a lot of reasons for that. One of the reasons is that the victim of the crime might decide that the crime is too trivial to go to the trouble and the time that it takes to go through the reporting process. Another reason might be that they manage to do a restorative process on the spot. For example, if you have a shoplifter, you take the goods back off them. It might not be worth that business’ trouble to report that crime formally. That is built in to all statistical collection around this country and elsewhere.
In terms of the recent Palmerston business survey - which was a very rough and ready survey, I might say. In fact, when you look at the percentage return, you are looking at about 80 returns of which, from memory, about 40% said they had unreported crime, so you are down to about 35 occasions when crime was not reported out of the total business community.
I want to make sure this is very clear on the public record, because the member for Blain was making much of the figure of 300 businesses being contacted. Sure, they were e-mailed, they received 80 returns and of those, 40% said that there was some crime being committed that had affected their business. So, we are talking about quite small numbers and, when you get down to the breakdown of the types of incidents that they were talking about, quite a number of those were, in turn, quite trivial crimes.
Members interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: Let the opposition be very careful about making these claims about an out of control impact of crime on businesses when the actual numbers they are talking about are quite small.
In the actual Palmerston business situation, we have advised earlier in this House that the police have been conducting successful operations around the greater Darwin and Palmerston area. Task Force Ranger was established in July 2002. Since July last year, it has cleared up 300 offences including 80 break-ins, arrested a total of 77 people, and summonsed 19 of them. Task Force Ranger also targeted five offenders who were responsible for 26 break-ins of business premises in the greater Darwin area, including Palmerston. Those offences, committed between late September and mid-December 2002, resulted in property valued at $703 000 being stolen and $289 000 of damage to the property. I am very pleased to report that, following these successful police operations, those five offenders have now been arrested and property valued at $100 000 recovered.
Operation Spitfire, which ran from 16 December 2002 to 31 January 2003, targeted the traditional increase in juvenile related crime over the Christmas school break. It was well received by members of the public and very successful alongside project Ranger.
We are very aware that crime levels remain at an unacceptably high level around the Territory. That is the very reason why we are giving such a major focus to this in the work of our government. We are going to get crime down. We are going to work with the community to do that, and we want to keep ….
Members interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: We would suggest to the opposition that they keep debate about crime issues to the facts and accurate, and do not try to mislead the Territory public.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, it is wonderful to get a question from the opposition. I have been waiting for about three sittings now. It is common to all statistical records, right round this country and in any similarly developed country around the world, for there to be a level of unreported offences within the system. Generally, that is estimated - certainly in Australia - that around 30% to a third of the total crime in the community will not be reported. There are a lot of reasons for that. One of the reasons is that the victim of the crime might decide that the crime is too trivial to go to the trouble and the time that it takes to go through the reporting process. Another reason might be that they manage to do a restorative process on the spot. For example, if you have a shoplifter, you take the goods back off them. It might not be worth that business’ trouble to report that crime formally. That is built in to all statistical collection around this country and elsewhere.
In terms of the recent Palmerston business survey - which was a very rough and ready survey, I might say. In fact, when you look at the percentage return, you are looking at about 80 returns of which, from memory, about 40% said they had unreported crime, so you are down to about 35 occasions when crime was not reported out of the total business community.
I want to make sure this is very clear on the public record, because the member for Blain was making much of the figure of 300 businesses being contacted. Sure, they were e-mailed, they received 80 returns and of those, 40% said that there was some crime being committed that had affected their business. So, we are talking about quite small numbers and, when you get down to the breakdown of the types of incidents that they were talking about, quite a number of those were, in turn, quite trivial crimes.
Members interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: Let the opposition be very careful about making these claims about an out of control impact of crime on businesses when the actual numbers they are talking about are quite small.
In the actual Palmerston business situation, we have advised earlier in this House that the police have been conducting successful operations around the greater Darwin and Palmerston area. Task Force Ranger was established in July 2002. Since July last year, it has cleared up 300 offences including 80 break-ins, arrested a total of 77 people, and summonsed 19 of them. Task Force Ranger also targeted five offenders who were responsible for 26 break-ins of business premises in the greater Darwin area, including Palmerston. Those offences, committed between late September and mid-December 2002, resulted in property valued at $703 000 being stolen and $289 000 of damage to the property. I am very pleased to report that, following these successful police operations, those five offenders have now been arrested and property valued at $100 000 recovered.
Operation Spitfire, which ran from 16 December 2002 to 31 January 2003, targeted the traditional increase in juvenile related crime over the Christmas school break. It was well received by members of the public and very successful alongside project Ranger.
We are very aware that crime levels remain at an unacceptably high level around the Territory. That is the very reason why we are giving such a major focus to this in the work of our government. We are going to get crime down. We are going to work with the community to do that, and we want to keep ….
Members interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: We would suggest to the opposition that they keep debate about crime issues to the facts and accurate, and do not try to mislead the Territory public.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016