Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Batman might think that they are dorothy dixers, but the people in my electorate of Swan will be very interested to hear the background to this question. Anytime you want to come to Swan, Member for Batman, you can. You can talk to the people of my electorate about the crime issues that we face. But, as of yet, I have not seen anyone from the Labor Party come to Swan to talk about crime issues since the election.

Mr Feeney interjecting—

You had your turn. Just sit down now and listen. I would like to give the minister a bit of background on the crime in my electorate. As you would understand, being a Western Australian, there is what is called the crime corridor in the south-eastern part of Perth which takes in my electorate, Hasluck and parts of Canning. We have had serious crime issues on our streets such as violence. I went out with a police patrol late at night and they were telling me about a situation where they arrived at the Burswood train station to find that one of the youths there had had half his face ripped off. That was typical of the crime in some of the areas in my electorate.

We conducted some local action campaigns through the community and one of them was at the Lynwood Village Shopping Centre, where they were experiencing a lot of issues with crime in the car parks and people being threatened. With support from the local City of Canning and the support of the local shopkeepers, security improvements were made through extra security guards and some CCTV camera installations. This was funded not only by the City of Canning but also by the owners of the shopping centre. Also, in an area in east Lynwood, as a crime prevention measure there were improvements to street lighting. Again, the City of Canning came to the party. We met on site with Linton Reynolds, whom you may know, and also the CEO of the City of Canning. Further to that, there were improvements in street lighting in that particular area.

I was operating a mobile office at the Carousel shopping centre and, after complaints were made at the mobile electorate office, information was given to us and forwarded to the police, who, within seven days, managed to shut down a drug house that was operating within about 500 metres of the shopping centre. In another two instances, in South Perth and St James, we have managed to have two other drug houses shut down with the assistance of police and information provided by the local community. So there is a real willingness and appetite among the local community to get involved and support reducing the crime problems that we face in Swan. We also had some instances of crime at the Carson Street school in East Victoria Park. Again, through my efforts and those of the local community, we managed to get the school to have some extra security fencing put up, which has helped address their crime prevention issues down there.

Also, we have seen security improvements to the Red Castle hotel site in Lathlain, just near the Burswood station. There were some issues with drugs, some dealers and the Red Castle hotel, which had been left destitute and in isolation and experienced a fire. With help from the Victoria Park council and support from the police, we managed to have some hotel fencing put in and patrols for that area were stepped up as well.

As you previously mentioned, you came to my electorate recently, about 2½ weeks ago, to continue the good work that has been done with the CCTV rollout, particularly in the city of Belmont and in Rivervale and Kewdale. It was great that you could come that day, meet with the PCYC and with a shopkeeper who had just experienced a robbery attempt on his shop, and announce a $100,000 commitment to the rollout of further CCTV around the Belmont Forum Shopping Centre.

Based on that information, can you explain the difference between the former government's National Crime Prevention Fund and the coalition government's Safer Streets Program? Also, is it incorrect for Labor members to be saying that funding has been cut in crime prevention?

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