Personal Explanation

CRIME STATISTICS

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (11:45): I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

Leave granted.

Dr McFETRIDGE: Yesterday in question time the member for Light, Mr Piccolo, asked the Minister for Police, 'Can the minister update the house on recent crime data released from the ABS?' In her answer to the question, the Minister for Police, the Hon. Jennifer Rankine, said:

I was very disturbed last week to hear the shadow minister for police claiming that there had been 57 homicides in South Australia.

She went on to say, 'Madam Speaker, this is simply not the case. The actual number of homicides was 27.' I actually thought I said 58 homicides, not 57, because the Australian Bureau of Statistics crime report, released on 7 June last week at 11.30am Canberra time, states on the page Contents; Victims of crime, states and territories; South Australia, 'In 2011, there were 58 victims of homicide in South Australia.'

On another page of the same report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, released last Thursday 7 June, a spreadsheet says that in 2010 in South Australia there were 37 homicides and that in 2011 there were 58 homicides.