Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Townsville has the most useless state MPs in the country: Labor's Aaron Harper, Les Walker and Scott Stewart. Our city is being kept hostage by the high crime rate that plagues our city, and these three Labor state MPs are nowhere to be seen. They are quiet on crime. They don't speak up. They don't represent their community. In the small time for which you may get them on a question about crime, they say, 'Our policies are working.' Well, the community doesn't think so. People are being pulled out of their cars at knifepoint. Cars are being jacked. We have people whose houses are being broken into every night. People feel like prisoners in their own home. This simply isn't good enough, and we need state MPs that stand up and put their community first. But at the moment that's not what we see.

What we'd like to see is the state Labor government introduce breach of bail as an offence, because, right now, a young criminal breaks into someone's house and gets arrested, and in the morning breaks into someone else's house and gets arrested, and there's no punishment for this bad behaviour. They reward bad behaviour. These young criminals are terrorising the streets of Townsville. People are fearful. These young criminals are getting more brazen, more violent—

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