HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-21 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

CRIME PREVENTION UNIT

The Hon. R.D. LAWSON (15:02): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Leader of the Government a question on the subject of crime prevention.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.D. LAWSON: It is 20 years since the then attorney-general Chris Sumner established a Crime Prevention Unit in the Attorney-General's Department; a unit which was continued by his successor the Hon. Trevor Griffin. South Australia, through that unit, developed a number of national and, indeed, internationally applauded crime prevention programs; in particular, the Local Government Crime Protection Program.

When this government came to office in 2002, in its first budget it cut community crime prevention by some 50 per cent, at that time the Attorney-General assuring the community that the Crime Prevention Unit in the Attorney-General's Department was still functioning and would still ensure that appropriate emphasis was placed on crime prevention. In July of this year, in another place, the member for Norwood asked a Dorothy Dixer of the Attorney-General. He applauded the work of the Crime Prevention Unit saying that, in order to sustain crime prevention programs, the government continues to support the Attorney-General's Crime Prevention Unit as the lead agency.

Shortly after that, the Crime Prevention Unit within the Attorney-General's Department was disbanded, abolished with no public announcement being made of that fact. The Attorney was asked about this matter only yesterday. He refused to go on radio about it, but he accused the unit of 'writing in the deconstructionist language of Derrida, the ideology of crime prevention'. My questions to the Attorney, and also to the Minister for Police, are:

1. When was the decision made to close the Crime Prevention Unit in the Attorney-General's Department?

2. Was that decision taken in consultation with the persons responsible for crime prevention within the police department?

3. Were the funds previously being employed by the crime prevention unit within the Attorney-General's Department transferred to the police department to enable the police to continue that work? If not, to what purposes are the funds saved by the closure of this unit (which at one time employed some 14 people) being applied, or is it just a savings measure within the Attorney-General's Department at the direction of the Treasurer?

4. When did the Attorney-General discover, to use his words, 'this unit was writing in the deconstructionist language of Derida the ideology of crime prevention' and why did he not take earlier steps to prevent it from engaging in that sort of conduct and focus on productive measures?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Police, Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning) (15:06): The proof is in the pudding in that since this government has been in office there has been a significant reduction in crime in this state. The most recently released statistics for 2006-07 reveal that during the past five years the record investment we have had in police resources has helped reduce the state's crime rate by 18.2 per cent since 2002-03.

Twenty years ago, the crime prevention unit was established and I am sure it did useful things at the time, but times change. There is always a need for new initiatives, and when this government came to office we saw the need for a significant beefing up of our resources. My colleague, the Minister for Correctional Services, has just indicated how this government has done something in relation to prisons because of the lack of investment over the previous decade prior to our coming to government. This government is now spending a significant amount of money in addressing that part of the population. The government has also put record amounts of money into the police budget.

The honourable member asked whether any savings from the crime prevention unit had been transferred to SAPOL. I am not sure whether that is true in a direct sense, but the total cost of the crime prevention unit would be dwarfed by the increase in the budget for the police department that has occurred under this government. There have been record budgets each year, with increases well above the inflation rate in relation to the police budget. Only yesterday the Premier announced in relation to the bikies initiative a further funding total of about $6 million, which will go not just into the police but also into the DPP and other investigation units in relation to outlaw motorcycle gangs. Just that increase announced yesterday by the Premier would be greater than the entire cost of the crime prevention unit.

The other point I make is that, in addition to record budgets for the police, there have been big increases in relation to the DPP, new prisons and all the other associated expenditure this government is making in the law and order area. In relation to crime prevention, there have been significant changes. Last week or the week before I answered a question in relation to the National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council, which this government supports. That council and its state counterpart focus on vehicle theft. That body is focusing on reducing crime in areas affected by the general public, and the results of the work it has done in improving technology are seen in significant reductions—about 30 per cent over the past five years—in motor vehicle theft. It is not as though this government does not support specific crime prevention activities: we do it through areas such as the National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council.

In addition, in terms of good design I can assure the council that, as Minister for Urban Development and Planning, my department (Planning SA), in many cases, assists local communities in respect of planning policies.

We support this through the Places for People grants to improve the design of open spaces to reduce crime. It is one of the accepted parts of good planning design that you bring into your design framework crime reduction principles. One grant we gave to Coober Pedy was specifically designed to encourage people with public drinking issues to locate in a particular part where there were the appropriate facilities, rather than having it on the main street. So, there are various ways you can do that, and that is all incorporated into the planning.

There are many ways in which this government does promote crime prevention, but at the end of the day, as we have discussed, the biggest deterrent that one can provide for certain types of crime is ensuring that, first of all, we catch the criminals and, secondly, that they are given appropriate penalties. So, we need heavier penalties, and those penalties need to be enforced by the courts. We need to have the prisons to ensure those penalties are provided. Experience shows that that is the biggest deterrent we can get in relation to crime. Certainly, this government makes no apology whatsoever for being tough on crime, and the statistics show that we have been successful.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT