‘Unacceptably high’: Independent MLA Robyn Lambley blasts the Chief Minister over rate of alcohol-fuelled crime in Alice Springs
Independent Member for Araluen Robyn Lambley has taken a swipe at Chief Minister Michael Gunner over the ‘unacceptably high rates’ of alcohol-fuelled crime in Alice Springs.
Centralian Advocate
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INDEPENDENT Member for Araluen Robyn Lambley has taken a swipe at Chief Minister Michael Gunner over the “unacceptably high rates” of alcohol-fuelled crime in Alice Springs.
During parliamentary question time on Tuesday, Ms Lambley asked Mr Gunner what more the government would do to protect the community.
“Crime in Alice Springs is not abating,” she said.
“The people of Alice Springs are continuing to suffer unacceptable high rates of alcohol-related assaults and crime.
“What hope can you give the people of Alice Springs?”
In his response, Mr Gunner said the government had done and would continue to do “significant work” in the Centralian town on multiple fronts.
“Every Territorian has the right to be safe and that includes the people in Alice Springs,” he said.
“As a government, we have to make sure that we have the policy settings right. In this parliament, there have been debates and bills passed and we are constantly looking at what the policy settings should be.”
Mr Gunner conceded that the current rate of adult reoffending in Territory, which he said was 80 per cent, was “far too high” and signalled that more reforms were necessary.
“We cannot keep doing things the way we always did things,” he said.
“We have to find ways of doing things differently.
“In terms of resources on the ground, we keep recruiting additional police and putting them into Alice Springs, making sure that we are doing the hard work on the front line.”
He said engaging youth workers was another key strategy to bring down the rate of crime.
“We have youth engagement officers doing incredible work on the front line,” he said.
“We tried the youth centre in the middle of Alice Springs.
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“While that served its purpose at the time, our priority must be trying to find a way to work with youths and dispersing them around Alice Springs.”
Mr Gunner said it was not acceptable for the government to tolerate that there will be victims of crime.
“If you are ever a victim of crime, it is not good enough,” he said.
“I have said this before: When someone is a victim of crime, as a government, we have failed.
“We have to do everything we can to make sure there are no victims of crime – it impacts the whole community, the family.
“We always want to strive and do better.”
Reports of crimes against the person and property crimes each rose about 15 per cent in Alice Springs for the 12 months ending May, when compared to the previous year.
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