Home Invasions

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (14:51): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the minister representing the Minister for Police questions relating to home invasions.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: It has come to my attention that there has been an increasing incidence of home invasions and resulting car thefts occurring in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide. I have been contacted regarding two specific home invasions which have occurred in the last couple of weeks in Adelaide's eastern suburbs.

The first was where a man was severely beaten with a baseball bat when he came face to face with multiple intruders in his home in the middle of the night. I am told he was beaten within an inch of his life, to use a colloquial expression, before the intruders fled the scene in his own car.

Another home invasion I am aware of happened to people known to me, where a masked man entered a house occupied by a woman and her young daughter. Thankfully this house had a monitored security system. The woman was able to press the panic alarm, sending the intruders fleeing. Unfortunately, despite this, the police were not able to apprehend the intruders.

I am told that this is part of a number of crimes that have occurred along similar lines in Adelaide's eastern suburbs in recent weeks. These criminals know that they have approximately 15 minutes to ransack a house and steal a car before police would arrive in general. They are also aware that police are obviously limited in their pursuit tactics if and when they identify the stolen vehicle as it has been taken from the home in question. My questions for the minister are:

1. How does the rate of home invasions compare this financial year to the last few financial years both across the state and specifically in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide where these events have occurred in recent times?

2. Has the systemic closure of police stations affected response times over the last five years?

3. What has been done to better resource police and ensure that they can respond quickly and apprehend criminals during such home invasions where seconds count?

4. What, if anything, is the government doing to better enable police to pursue and catch these perpetrators?

5. Does the government plan to introduce a task force or something similar in order to deal with this crime wave that is currently underway?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (14:53): I thank the honourable member for his question and acknowledge his ongoing advocacy when it comes to addressing issues around crime within the state. Naturally, the question being for the Minister for Police, I am more than happy to take the question on notice and pass it on to him accordingly. However, I can't help but take up the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Minister for Police in regard to a couple of components of the honourable member's question.

The first one he raises is the issue around police resourcing and decisions that the police commissioner may have made in regard to police station operating hours. As the former police minister, I have spoken a number of times in this place around the fact that this state government, of course, has provided the police with a record level of investment. We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of active sworn police officers who are out on the ground serving our community, principally represented by ongoing recruitment campaigns, the most recent one of which is the Recruit 313 exercise, which is seeing an extra 313 active sworn full-time police being delivered to the police force over and above the rate of attrition. It's an extraordinary effort that is underway.

However, what the police commissioner has also done is make sure that those resources actually deliver an outcome on the ground. That means that the police commissioner has made a number of difficult decisions—but quality decisions—that are orientated towards improving response times. That includes adjustments to reduce some police station operating hours. You wouldn't believe it, but criminals tend not to commit criminal acts within the reception of a police station. Believe it or not, they don't even commit crimes in the car parks of police stations.

What actually ends up happening is that they commit crimes out in the community, so what we want is the same thing that the Hon. Mr Hood wants, which is police out on the beat—out on the ground in their patrol cars, getting around the place, so that when a call comes they can respond to it quickly, as I indeed hope occurred in the instance the Hon. Mr Hood refers to. If we have more police sitting around police stations waiting for people to walk through the front door, that compromises their capacity to otherwise be out on the ground. So, it's about getting the balance right, and I know the police commissioner has worked assiduously to ensure that is the case.

The opposition, of course, are trying to exploit this as an example, somehow, of a failure of government policy. It's just utterly extraordinary that the opposition are going to the election as the alternate government of this state with a repeatedly stated policy, in a number of instances, that they are going to exercise extraordinary powers to instruct the police commissioner about how to do his job. It is an extraordinary policy that we are going to have the Liberal Party—the likes of the Hon. Mr Lucas—telling the police commissioner how to do his job. It's going to be a ripper to see the way this unfolds and whether or not the South Australian community is willing to entrust police and security policy to the hands of the Hon. Mr Lucas or the police commissioner. I know who we back: we back our police.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: We back our police. The residents and the people of South Australia will have to analyse the policy of the Liberal Party, who can't help themselves. The Hon. Mr Lucas and the Hon. Mr Ridgway are going to the election telling people that they know more about policing than the police commissioner himself. It's a ripper. Good luck to them. Our policy is on the record. What we do is give police record resources. How about this for a statistic—it stands in stark contrast to when the other mob were in charge: we have more police per capita in South Australia than any other state in the country. It's a formidable record.

What the Liberal Party want to do with all those extra police is wrap them up in police stations: more police sitting around in police stations, while we have more police out on the beat. More police sitting around in police stations or more police out on the beat. I know which one the South Australian public prefers. They don't want you—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: —telling where police should be.

The PRESIDENT: Speak through the chair.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: Police out on the beat or police sitting around in police stations. Bring it on.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: I'll take you out to Salisbury and see what they want, mate.

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: And Henley Beach.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: They want it out on the beat.

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: No, they don't; they want a police station.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Lucas.

The Hon. P. Malinauskas: They want it out on the beat.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: You're an idiot. I withdraw, sir.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Lucas.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Will the honourable Leader of the Government please address members here as 'the honourable'.

The Hon. P. Malinauskas: Well, how about people not calling each other idiots?

The PRESIDENT: He just apologised.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: I withdrew the comment, alright?

The PRESIDENT: He withdrew the comment. The Hon. Mr Lucas has the floor. The Hon. Mr Lucas, I don't know what you are waiting for. You have the floor.

Members interjecting: