Queensland election: Jobless surge drives crime in Townsville

Unemployment in Townsville is driving crime rates in the city to well above the Queensland ­average.

High levels of unemployment in Townsville are helping drive high crime rates in the city to well above the Queensland average.

An analysis of Queensland Police Service and Queensland Treasury found that the electorate where unemployment and crime were the highest was the seat of Townsville, held by the ALP with a margin of just 0.4 per cent.

The seat of Townsville, based around the CBD and the city’s inner suburbs, has an unemployment rate of 9.8 per cent while the crime rate is 2.5 times worse than in the rest of the state and about a quarter of the people in the seat have been victims of crime.

While Townsville is one of the most marginal seats in the state, the other two electorates based in Townsville, Thuringowa and Mundingburra, are both held by the ALP with margins of 4.1 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively. The figures show that in the seat of Townsville, there were 13,072 ­offences committed in the year 2019-20, which equates to 25,562 offences per 100,000 people, or just over 25 per cent of the ­electorate.

In that year, there were 1251 ­offences against an individual in the electorate, and 5,300 offences against property, while there were 6521 offences in the “other” category.

In the nearby electorate of Thuringowa, with an unemployment rate of 9.5 per cent, there were a total of 7243 offences committed in 2019-20, which equates to 13,662 offences per 100,000 people, or just over 13 per cent of the electorate.

In the seat of Mundingburra, where unemployment is running at 6.6 per cent, the crime rate is slightly lower, with 7507 offences being committed in 2019-20 which equates to 14,367 offences per 100,000, or 14 per cent of the electorate being affected by crime.

Crime rates in Thuringowa are 31 per cent above the state average while those in Mundingburra are 38 per cent above the rest of Queensland.

While there are links between unemployment and crime levels in Townsville, in the electorates to the north and south of the city both unemployment and crime are considerably lower.

Burdekin, to the south of Townsville, which goes south to include Ayr and Home Hill, as well as some mining towns, has an unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent, while only 9 per cent — below the statewide average of just over 10 per cent — of the electorate had been victims of crime.

The same trend is obvious in the seat to the north, Hinchinbrook, which has an unemployment rate of 4.9 per cent, and only 6.6 per cent of the electorate have been victims of crime.