Queensland state budget: $3bn for police services won’t resolve Cairns youth crime, advocate says
A three-time Cairns stolen car victim believes the $3bn allocated to policing in the state budget should have been allocated to a root cause of youth crime. READ HER SUBMISSION
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A RECORD spend on policing announced in Tuesday’s state budget will do little to reduce the Far North’s youth crime problem, an outspoken Cairns anti-crime advocate says.
The Palaszczuk government allocated $3bn for policing in Queensland, which included upgrades to current police stations and construction of new facilities, as well employing an additional 2025 extra personnel over five years from July 2020.
Among the new facilities will be the $11m expansion of the Woree station, while the Cairns West station is expected to cost $2.3m and the Cairns CBD refurbishment will cost $17m by its completion in September 2022. And in April, it was announced 150 extra officers would be deployed to Cairns.
However anti-crime campaigner Perri Conti, who has had cars stolen on three occasions, said she had made a habit of sitting in at Cairns Magistrates Court on Mondays and believed the lack of police weren’t the issue in the city.
“You see so many of the same names appearing again and again. Just a take a look at the daily law list a couple of weeks in a row,” Ms Conti said.
“You can get all the police you want, all the stations you want, but the system is broken.
“So, if I had my way, I would be spending less on resi care homes and I would be putting more money into supporting and educating the families. We all know that’s really where the problem starts.
“Instead of taking kids away because the family can’t feed them, why not offer support and food vouchers so the kids can stay at home. Instead of sticking them in resi care, where they don’t really have a parental figure, where they get to connect with other young crims.”
Police Minister Mark Ryan said the budget’s new and/or upgraded police facilities included Cairns, Cairns West and Woree.
“The Cairns region will benefit from the progressive rollout of the 2025 new police personnel of which the Police Commissioner has stated will mean a minimum of an extra 150 police per region by 2025,” Mr Ryan said.
Mr Ryan said the budget will ensure that every frontline police officer has access to new equipment such as body-worn cameras, QLiTE tablet devices and integrated load bearing ballistic vests to ensure every frontline police officer had access to this important policing equipment.
“I have already announced, pre-Budget, the Police Commissioner has confirmed an extra 12 police officers would be deployed to Cairns with six of those officers to be based at the Cairns City Beat,” he said.
The police budget also provided funding for an Australian first trial of anti-hoon camera trailers as part of a Road Safety Anti-Hooning Maximum Saturation Deterrence Strategy and complements Queensland’s nation leading anti-hoon laws with tough penalties including vehicle confiscation, hefty fines and potentially jail time for the worst hoon offenders.
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Originally published as Queensland state budget: $3bn for police services won’t resolve Cairns youth crime, advocate says
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