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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-02-07 Daily Xml
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FIREARM OFFENCES

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:27): I rise today to inform the house that very sadly overnight we have had the 15th shooting in our state since New Year's Eve compared to three for the same period last year. So far this year we have had five times as many shootings in our state and that is South Australians being illegally, criminally shot at by other people in this state. Why can't the government take action? Why can't the government step up, give the police the resources that they need and do something about this?

What the government says instead is: 'It is all okay. We've got crime stats that tell us that things are getting safer in South Australia. We've got crime stats that tell us that it is all okay, you should be safe on the streets.' The reality is that is just not the case. People are not safer on the street, people are not feeling comfortable, and you only have to look at the police Facebook site to look at exactly how people are feeling. They are very concerned about this situation.

This situation is linked in to illegal firearms. As would be patently obvious, people who go around shooting each other are not using lawfully owned firearms. They are using illegal firearms. Again, what is the minister doing? The minister tells us that these firearms are coming in from interstate and there is not much we can do about it because it is a problem from interstate. Guess what? That is absolutely not the case. SAPOL and the Australian Crime Commission records tell us that every year in Australia on average there are 1,545 firearms stolen. In South Australia there are 200 firearms stolen every year—13 per cent, so nearly double our state's population share of firearms that have been stolen within South Australia than there should be.

Very alarmingly, on top of the 200 per year recorded being stolen in our state, another 900 firearms go into the category of 'gone missing'. This is not a problem that the minister or the government can just fob off and say that it is coming from interstate and there is not much we can do about it. It is a problem we have here and it is a problem that must be addressed.

Another thing the minister trots out is that these are people shooting each other, they are people who are known to each other and, yes, while it is all a bit sad, other people should feel very comfortable and very safe because it is an internal issue. Guess what? No. 1, that is a ridiculous and completely unacceptable excuse. We have people being shot at in the streets and other South Australians put in danger.

Let me give you an example from overnight in Salisbury, when somebody was sitting in a car, in a car park, and another person came up to the car window and said, 'Could I have a cigarette?' They leant over, grabbed a handbag out of that car, ran off, jumped in a car and drove away. The person or people in the car from which the handbag was stolen followed them in the car, only to find out that the person who stole the handbag, or another person in their car, fired back at them.

This is not people known to each other. This is not some class of people of which the minister would say, 'Just ignore them. Let them do their thing.' This is violence on our street with people getting shot at. That is the reality of it and that is exactly what is going on.

I call on the government to immediately give the police more resources. Fifteen shootings since the start of the year is not good enough—that is five times the number in the same period last year. It is not good enough to say that we have police, we have programs, we have resources and we have assets that we have given to them last time, last year, in previous times.

If this was a bushfire, if this was a flood, if this was an earthquake, there would be action immediately. The government would not just say, 'We've got programs in place to deal with this sort of thing.' They would respond immediately. There have been five times as many shootings as last year and the government has done absolutely nothing to give additional resources to the police since New Year's Eve, when this extraordinary crime wave started.

This is an issue the government must address. Illegal firearms are at the heart of this. We have 200 firearms every year in this state being stolen; on top of that, 900 firearms every year in this state go missing. So, we have 1,100 legally owned firearms becoming illegally owned firearms—that is the heart of the problem and that is what the government must address.

They have to give the police the resources they need to get on top of this problem. They cannot keep making excuses. They cannot say that we have a website that tells people that certain categories of crimes have reduced so you all need to feel safe in your houses, you all need to feel safe on the street, because it is just not the case with this level of shootings.

Time expired.

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