Vikki Campion: Funding should be used to protect people on our streets

A government fund originally intended to address crime or anti-social behaviour in public is now being used to stop terrorist attacks instead of protecting people on the street, Vikki Campion writes.

A Commonwealth fund originally intended to keep you safe walking home from the pub is now being used to stop terrorist attacks on mosques. As horrific as terrorism is, it is not the great threat to the young woman at the taxi stand, who wants to be in a lit-area with Big Brother’s security watching her.

The program was originally designed as a deterrent to general criminals. Terrorism is a whole different portfolio of evil.

General deterrents to random acts of anti-social behaviour allowed money to go a long, long way.

Terrorism is very expensive and very targeted. Professional terrorists aren’t known for breaking into Scout Halls and tagging graffiti over the walls, breaking into footy clubs and destroying the locker rooms, or walking up the main street kicking in windows.

Run-of-the-mill ratbags are typically devoid of the curiosity that would make them ask the difficult questions around the Gaza Strip and Suni Shi’ite divide.

Generally, they don’t have a clue but many are rather well-informed about the street price of meth.

The government funding should be used to help keep people safe on the streets. Picture: Tony Gough

That is who the young women leaving the pub are worried about. It’s not the Taliban that is going to approach you leaving Victoria Hotel at Goondiwindi.

Now, instead of security lighting on a Gatton cricket clubhouse, this program is funding security guards on a Jewish eastern Sydney preschool. Instead of fencing a suburban Scout Hall, it is blast-proofing a religious school in East St Kilda.

This is not to say that mosques and schools are not worthy recipients of security upgrades in urban locations, but this is not what this program was designed for.

It was to get you safely into a taxi, give the street criminal an idea that someone was watching, and to stop a delinquent throwing rocks.

Freedom of religion is not what the addict is going to break into your house over. The noise of Melbourne and Sydney drowns out regional Townsville, gobbling up huge chunks of a budget that were once widely spread around the general community.

I’m not saying that freedom of religion isn’t a big issue, but that this funding is getting sucked from the wider group of people in their everyday lives.

The Safer Communities Fund has been largely wiped out of regional communities because of guideline changes espousing that beneficiaries “must have security risks associated with racial or religious intolerance”.

Under this current criteria, there are few projects in any regional electorate asides from the Northern Territory that would – or has recently – qualified.

The streets of Sydney, like any city in Australia, can be dangerous. Picture: Damian Shaw

One positive thing about regional Australia is there are no real threats to their regional churches or mosques so they have less access to funds. When I grew up in North Queensland, the mosque in Mareeba was hardly a focal point for terrorism after the rodeo, but the pub at closing time was a different story.

Our threat wasn’t religious tensions, but local idiots.

In Queensland, police are frantic because the Labor state government has decided that they cannot pursue criminals who ransack your house and steal your car.

The latest published grants for the past two rounds now include more than $817,000 for security upgrades at mosques and Islamic Society and colleges in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

More than $5 million has gone to protect Jewish schools, property and retirement villages in inner Sydney, including $495,000 to fund security guards a preschool in Woollahra.

Another $1.5 million has gone into door reinforcement into the Hebrew Congregation in South Yarra, and blast-proof windows and blast protective perimeter fencing at Yeshiva-Beth campuses in East St Kilda, Victoria.

There is no doubt these issues arise but that should be from a completely different program.

Under the original criteria, schools and preschools were ineligible.

Funding was primarily about slashing street crime and violence, anti-social behaviour, reducing fear of crime and increasing feelings of safety in the Australian community and contribute to greater community resilience.

Religious organisations are now getting millions of dollars in funding, while Rotary clubs, chambers of commerce and local footy clubs that were after a $10,000 cheque to get some lights, cameras and a gate have been stripped of their eligibility.

Volunteer-run groups have lost this opportunity because we are trying to solve apparent religious and racial intolerance with blast windows.

When the Laidley District Cricket Club in Gatton needed $40,000 for CCTV and security lights, it wasn’t because they were of a particular race or religion.

A CCTV camera isn’t going to heal racial divisions within a community, but one of the best social cohesion programs is people playing sport together.

Blast proof doors and windows won’t stop religious intolerance but leadership at the local level might.

The Safer Communities Program, funded by the Proceeds of Crime, has been mis-purposed and won’t achieve its new righteous objectives.

The fund was birthed for one reason – to address crime or anti-social behaviour in public or community spaces.

It takes more than a swipe card or security lighting to heal divisions in society. It takes acceptance and tolerance and a security device has none of these.