Mr McADAM - 2002-02-26
Will the minister give details of the Labor government’s injection of funds into and focus on crime prevention?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, yesterday was a great day for me in my new responsibilities because, while ministers always have to deal with many day-to-day matters that clearly need decisions, we are in government, in any government, setting out on the campaign to bring the big things in, bring the things in that you want to be remembered for as a government.
In the case of this Labor government, we have made it very clear what our priorities are going to be. Crime prevention is right up there, employment is right up there, and health and education. They are our four great pillars of this government, and we want to be known to have done a good job on all four of them.
Yesterday was the launch of one of those major campaigns to set up the whole-of-government structure for the pursuit of crime prevention. I was particularly pleased yesterday that such a large number of the police turned up. I can say they were in a very buoyant mood, did not look demoralised to me at all, and it was good to have them there because what we were able to say is that they are still the frontline troops of crime prevention. Enforcement will always be the cornerstone of any action by a community against crime, and the police are the enforcers of the law.
Having said that, we are now going to start building, on a whole-of-government basis, a large range of complementary measures to the action of the police, aimed not at enforcement entirely, although there will be law reforms that will do that, but aimed at all the other things you have to be doing in your community to effectively combat crime. In fact, you cannot combat crime without mobilising your community. The Office of Crime Prevention and its structure - leading down to regional and local advisory groups - with its strong enhanced program of community grants will bring forward ideas and initiatives from the community which can then be turned by the office into the core business of this government.
We are going to build action against crime into all of our government departments where it is appropriate. That is a complete departure from earlier approaches by the previous government, in that they talked a lot about whole-of-government processes. But we are going to be able to get up here in this House and quite clearly identify, through the Office of Crime Prevention, the areas throughout government where crime prevention work is going on, is being budgeted for, and supported with personnel.
We will also be able to go to the community at large with a set of agreed information about crime in our community. That is going to really cramp your style over there because we have had years of figures being trotted out, coming from nowhere and going nowhere, particularly the member for Katherine in the recent debate over the Neighbourhood Watch figures - that was an absolute revelation in how to misuse statistics. We are going to put out statistics that people can trust, we are going to put them out regularly, they are going to be consistent, and they are going to be analysed so that we can start with the facts. Then let’s have an informed debate in this community about what to do about our crime levels.
We are going to bring people with us on this, and we are going to be working right down to neighbourhoods, to households, to remote communities, on what ideas people are bringing to government to combat crime in their own situation. We are going to work with people on this and we are very serious about it. I am very proud of what we announced yesterday.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, yesterday was a great day for me in my new responsibilities because, while ministers always have to deal with many day-to-day matters that clearly need decisions, we are in government, in any government, setting out on the campaign to bring the big things in, bring the things in that you want to be remembered for as a government.
In the case of this Labor government, we have made it very clear what our priorities are going to be. Crime prevention is right up there, employment is right up there, and health and education. They are our four great pillars of this government, and we want to be known to have done a good job on all four of them.
Yesterday was the launch of one of those major campaigns to set up the whole-of-government structure for the pursuit of crime prevention. I was particularly pleased yesterday that such a large number of the police turned up. I can say they were in a very buoyant mood, did not look demoralised to me at all, and it was good to have them there because what we were able to say is that they are still the frontline troops of crime prevention. Enforcement will always be the cornerstone of any action by a community against crime, and the police are the enforcers of the law.
Having said that, we are now going to start building, on a whole-of-government basis, a large range of complementary measures to the action of the police, aimed not at enforcement entirely, although there will be law reforms that will do that, but aimed at all the other things you have to be doing in your community to effectively combat crime. In fact, you cannot combat crime without mobilising your community. The Office of Crime Prevention and its structure - leading down to regional and local advisory groups - with its strong enhanced program of community grants will bring forward ideas and initiatives from the community which can then be turned by the office into the core business of this government.
We are going to build action against crime into all of our government departments where it is appropriate. That is a complete departure from earlier approaches by the previous government, in that they talked a lot about whole-of-government processes. But we are going to be able to get up here in this House and quite clearly identify, through the Office of Crime Prevention, the areas throughout government where crime prevention work is going on, is being budgeted for, and supported with personnel.
We will also be able to go to the community at large with a set of agreed information about crime in our community. That is going to really cramp your style over there because we have had years of figures being trotted out, coming from nowhere and going nowhere, particularly the member for Katherine in the recent debate over the Neighbourhood Watch figures - that was an absolute revelation in how to misuse statistics. We are going to put out statistics that people can trust, we are going to put them out regularly, they are going to be consistent, and they are going to be analysed so that we can start with the facts. Then let’s have an informed debate in this community about what to do about our crime levels.
We are going to bring people with us on this, and we are going to be working right down to neighbourhoods, to households, to remote communities, on what ideas people are bringing to government to combat crime in their own situation. We are going to work with people on this and we are very serious about it. I am very proud of what we announced yesterday.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016