Sharryn Jackson (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. What steps is the government taking to assist making the suburbs of Perth safer for the community?

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hasluck for her very important question and her abiding support for ensuring we provide better safety in our communities. The federal government has been working very hard with local government and other community groups to ensure that we provide better support for our people in the community. What we have ensured is that we work in partnership with local councils. That is consistent with the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government’s and the Prime Minister’s efforts over the last two years to work in close partnership with local councils.

The Safer Suburbs Plan has been a very effective approach to ensuring that we reduce crime and the fear of crime in our community. I recently visited Perth to see the success of several of those programs and I am pleased to outline some of those very successful programs to the House. Firstly, in the City of Gosnells in the member for Hasluck’s electorate I visited a fantastic Thornlie civic precinct which has been revitalised through a safer suburbs grant of $500,000. The precinct comprises the Thornlie State Park, Thornlie Library and Leisure World. It is a great project giving young people a safe and visible place to participate, to join together. It is also a place where we can ensure greater engagement with social services for those young people who might be on the margins and might be vulnerable to falling into criminal or anti-social behaviour. This is a very good effort and I would like to applaud the efforts by the City of Gosnells and also the member for Hasluck for her advocacy for this program.

Can I also mention the City of Swan. The government is providing better support for young people in the Ballajura area. I met and spoke to a number of those involved in this very exciting initiative that engages young people at risk of a life of crime and anti-social behaviour. This will reduce the likelihood of juveniles offending or re-offending and reduce crime and, as I said earlier, the fear of crime in our community. In the same municipality I was also pleased to launch the new mobile CCTV camera project, Oscar, which will be used to deter and, failing that, detect crime or anti-social behaviour in the City of Swan. These mobile CCTVs have been designed and built by officers and employees of the municipality of Swan and they should be commended for their efforts and their partnership with the federal government in order to protect the community in that municipality.

In the City of Belmont, the Prime Minister and I were given a demonstration of an alarm assist project which involves the installation of alarms in businesses and residences in the municipality as well as a sophisticated CCTV system linking existing cameras and installing new ones in the Kooyong Road shopping precinct. This is a very important initiative and I do applaud the municipality for their efforts. In the City of Stirling the government funded security patrol vehicles monitoring hot spots by foot patrols and quad bikes for beach patrols in and around the Scarborough beach area.

I would like to thank the member for Hasluck for her advocacy and support for these initiatives in her own electorate and, while I am on my feet, I would like to thank the member for Petrie, the member for Longman and the member for Wakefield, who I visited in their own electorates which have similar programs. The Rudd government will continue to work closely with local government, local police and community organisations to mitigate against crime, to reduce crimes against persons or property and, very importantly too, to reduce the fear of crime in our community.