Question Time

CRIME PREVENTION UNIT

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): My question is to the Premier. Why has the Premier axed the state's Crime Prevention Unit?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:23): The Rann government spends most of its money for crime prevention on the police, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the courts, and the prison system, and we are making a massive investment in a gigantic prison at Murray Bridge.

Mrs Penfold: That's not crime prevention.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I am glad that the member for Flinders regards prison as no deterrent. The last time we read about the member for Flinders—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: —in the media she was defending the governor of Port Lincoln Prison. What does she say now?

Mrs Penfold: I still do.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Whenever we pay our police or our prosecutors a decent amount of money and their salaries click over $100,000, what do we have? Liberal Party members hollering that there are more fat cats. Who do they think puts criminals inside prisons here in South Australia? It is the police and prosecutors, under the auspices of the Rann government. This government has a crime prevention program. We make grants totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars not just to local government but to other organisations that show that they have a plan that could help prevent crime in South Australia.

We have made grants to these groups and we will continue to make grants to these groups but, having said that, I do not require a dedicated desk somewhere in the Attorney-General's Department (at 45 Pirie Street) writing in the deconstructionist language of Derida the ideology of crime prevention. We know what does and does not work in crime prevention. We are well aware of what can be done, and we do not need to reinvent the wheel in the Attorney-General's Department.