Wall of wee a piddling concern when CBD is in crisis | Caleb Bond

The CBD is flooded with anti-social troublemakers but apparently miscreant micturitions are top of mind in SA’s halls of power. This stinks, writes Caleb Bond.

Many people would describe state parliament as a toilet.

Some of the people inside it are certainly full of piss and wind.

And now, it would seem, so are a few people outside.

A fence has to be erected on the southeastern corner of the august North Tce building because, well – I’ll defer to the Joint Parliamentary Service Committee.

“Building services are investigating the possibility of installing a new security fence around the existing retaining wall to prevent vagrants consistently using the area as a toilet facility,” read the agenda from Monday’s committee meeting.

That’s not a sentence I thought I’d ever see in print – apart from, maybe, in a script for Yes Minister or Utopia.

But here we are. People are piddling on parliament and damaging the light fixtures.

You’ve heard of the Wailing Wall – one of Jerusalem’s great religious icons and tourist attractions. Now Adelaide is getting the Wee Wall.

We have to piss money up the wall to stop this filthy behaviour. Literally.

All jokes aside, it is incredible that it has come to this.

The issue of grime and crime in the Adelaide CBD, particularly around North Tce, has been bubbling away for more than six months.

It’s not new.

But only now are the police waking from their slumber and doing something about it – at the same time as our hall of democracy has to protect itself from becoming a shrine to urine.

A little more than a week ago, acting police commissioner Linda Williams said rising CBD crime was a “perception”.

Now extra officers are flooding the city in an effort to stem anti-social behaviour.

In April, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said it was “not the job of the police to intervene and prevent that behaviour from occurring” and instead “to respond when it does”.

And that is why we now need the Wee Wall.

SAPOL failed in its duty, under state law, to prevent crime.

What have Mr Stevens, Ms Williams and others been doing for the past six months?

Crime statistics clearly show a sharp rise in thefts and serious assaults. Anyone who has walked around the city recently, particularly along North Tce, could tell you things don’t feel quite right.

People tried to raise the issue.

But these complaints were met with continuous denial of the problem until it got so bad that to keep ignoring it would have been politically damaging.

Now they’re deploying more coppers – but what will they actually do?

You can’t just round these people up, put them in a paddy wagon and shove them in the cells overnight before letting them go again. They’ll go straight back.

Anyone who takes a wizz on Parliament House or sits around North Tce drinking grog out of a brown paper bag is in need of more help than a police interview room can provide them.

They needed that help a year ago. Instead, the problem was left to fester.

Serious questions must be asked.