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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-04-11 Daily Xml
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OPERATION DISARM

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (14:23): A supplementary: given the Attorney-General's answer to that question, could he please explain to the house why it is that he is calling 32 illegal firearms seized and 24 arrests and reports in one month a success, when the average for the previous seven months, excluding the amnesty, was 180 illegal firearms seized and 67 arrests and reports per month?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I think that is a supplementary.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:23): I am very happy to answer that question. I do not know where the honourable member has his figures from, but I can tell you this: I was advised today, in fact an hour or so ago, by the deputy commissioner that the result of this particular campaign has been a doubling of information provided to police through Crime Stoppers above their long-term average of reports relating to firearms.

Each one of those reports to police in relation to firearms needs to be investigated and needs to be pursued. It is my understanding also, as a result of my conversation with the deputy commissioner today, that of the 100 or so complaints that have been received, they have been able to deal with, in the sense of process fully and investigate fully, 50 of those to date from which they have the yield that I spoke to the house about a moment or two ago.

The remaining 50 (or 52, or thereabouts) are continuing to be investigated. Can I indicate to the house that the investigation includes a number of things. As the deputy commissioner explained to me today, to know that a complaint is made of a firearm being at a particular address is not sufficient for the police to go to that address, knock on the door, and say, 'Excuse me, have you got a firearm we can have?' That's not how it works.

What they do is when they have that intelligence, when they have that information, they make due inquiry as to what else they might have relevant to that address, so that when they attend they have some idea what they are likely to encounter. So, to say that within six weeks there has not been the yield that the honourable member is talking about, he is actually talking about a yield produced by an ongoing process. I am advised, as I said, by the deputy commissioner that the yield they have received in respect of complaints to Crime Stoppers—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —about illegal firearms is double.

The SPEAKER: Before we have another supplementary, I warn the members for Heysen and Schubert for the first time. The member for Stuart.

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