Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to speak tonight about hoons, crime, vandalism and graffiti: law and order, and crime, in my electorate and across Western Australia—and probably across Australia. Vandals, youth at risk and others are running rampant in our communities. It is a blight on today’s society. In my electorate of Hasluck, since I won the seat at the last election, law and order has been the No. 1 issue that people have raised with me, when I have been doorknocking or through correspondence, including emails, or at community crime prevention forums that I have conducted.

In recent times the situation seems to have worsened in Hasluck, as well as throughout the Perth metropolitan area. One of the worst incidents involved the savage assault of a 79-year-old constituent in her home at Gosnells. The horrific injuries that this woman suffered were highlighted in the local and national media for days after she was viciously assaulted. So far, police have not been able to catch the perpetrators of this callous home invasion. My sympathies and good wishes go out to this poor woman and her family as she recovers from this horrible and devastating ordeal.

In Western Australia we are now in our sixth year of a state Labor government whose record on law and order, particularly in the areas of street crime, home invasions, sexual assaults, graffiti and hoons, is absolutely appalling. Recently the Liberal opposition in WA revealed that in 2006-07 there were 2,071 more bashings than there were in 2001. Their investigation also revealed that, during the same period, there had been a 111 per cent increase in the number of violent rapes and sexual assaults.

In Perth recently, we have seen a man bashed with a star picket while gardening in his front yard, a man enjoying a quiet night out with a mate dying after being king hit in Mandurah—an all too frequent occurrence these days—and a baby badly hurt in a road rage incident. Labor is soft on crime in WA. I know that other Liberal federal members, like me, spend a great deal of time handling local crime issues, hoons, graffiti and other such antisocial behaviour, because our constituents are fed up with a lack of action by the state government in the area of policing and community service and turn to us for help. They do not differentiate on this issue. They know they have been let down by Labor and they expect the federal government to play a stronger role.

Every Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning, Perth radio news bulletins are full of stories from the weekend feast of crime that envelops the metropolitan area. Emergency departments at Perth’s major hospitals resemble war zones as victims of crime need treatment, with overworked staff also trying to deal with violent drug-affected users and alcoholic binge drinkers. There is a real fear factor in Perth about travelling on public transport on Friday and Saturday nights, walking through shopping malls or through Northbridge or Fremantle.

The Sunday Times newspaper of last weekend published the results of its annual reader survey on crime in Western Australia. Almost 6,000 readers responded to the survey which found that 50 per cent of respondents had been victims of crime in the past 12 months. Nearly 60 per cent of respondents said Western Australia was a more dangerous place to live since Labor came to power six years ago. Yet, over the past few months, the Labor government of Western Australia has closed a number of police stations in country areas.

While the state Labor government has failed in this vital area, the Howard government has played its part in the Hasluck electorate in doing what it can to address crime and antisocial behaviour. So far, nearly $1 million in federal funding has gone to specific community based activities aimed at reducing the level of crime and loutish behaviour under the government’s National Community Crime Prevention Program grants scheme. There was a stark warning in the editorial in the most recent edition of the Sunday Times. It said:

The most disturbing aspect about crime in Western Australia is not the regularity or extent of it.

The most worrying thing is that many of us have become inured to it. Even the more violent incidents are met with an air of acceptance, as if nothing can be done to stop them.

The pressure is now on Labor in Western Australia to stop talking about crime and to start providing real solutions to the people in my electorate, as well as those in every other community in Western Australia. We need more police—not more public servants, as some 18,000 have already been employed by the Labor government since they were first elected. We need people who are out on the beat, doing the job and looking after the community.