Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Wherever I go in the electorate of Cowan, whether it is in shopping centres, or at people’s front doors or at sporting complexes around Cowan, one of the major issues that people bring to me when I ask, ‘What are the problems on your local street?’ is law and order. Assaults, burglaries and car theft—as well as graffiti and hooning—are the sorts of things that people speak about.

I always get the weekly figures of crime throughout the electorate of Cowan. In the last year or so what I have seen in the crime figures is that they are going down. There was a time, several years ago, when I would see the crime figures for suburbs like Girrawheen—socioeconomically challenged place—and there would be 30 burglaries in a month. Fortunately, we are now at the level where there might be three a week, so there has been a dramatic reduction. In fact, across the whole electorate there has been a dramatic reduction in crime.

But that is not to say that we should ever say, ‘Well, that is enough; that is all we need to do.’ The reality is that we must continue to try hard to eliminate crime forever. I know that that is unlikely to ever be achieved, but we must always aim for that—no burglaries, no break-ins, no assaults, no graffiti and no hooning in our suburbs. I doubt that will ever happen, but that is what we should be aiming for.

I see this being achieved through a combination of things. I have seen areas in the electorate of Cowan where there is such community strength and we should all be very proud of that. There are streets you can walk along where people will come up to you very politely and just say: ‘Hey, how’s it going? What are you doing here?’ Those are the sorts of streets we want—where people push their control, as good neighbours and good citizens, beyond the front door of their houses into the street. So anybody up to no good walking down that street will be noticed. That is exactly the kind of strong community that we want. But that is not everywhere.

I talk in schools about community awareness and the need for young people to be involved. Through my Cowan community watch and my junior Cowan community watch, I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of young people who are very keen to be actively involved and to take responsibility for their local area. They want to report stuff; they want things to be better. That is a very encouraging thing. We need a whole lot more adults as well. There are a lot of adults involved—with Neighbourhood Watch, that is also encouraging. But we must always remember that it cannot just be about government. It must also be about local people taking responsibility, exerting control over their area and working to make it as good a place as it can be.

In the past we have talked about CCTV. Certainly, the previous government and this government are interested in CCTV, and I am very happy about that. I am also very keen on speed humps to combat hooning and I was very pleased when the state government picked up a suggestion of mine to introduce movable speed humps—non-permanent speed humps—that can be put into streets where local people are very happy to have them.

So I see opportunities for government to work with the will and strength of local communities to achieve reductions in crime. It is not down to one and it is not down to the other. It is a matter of combinations and it is a matter of communities wanting to be as good as they can be and working hard for that—with the support of governments in regard to CCTV, speed humps and funding to support local community ventures.

These are the things that I see as very important, and these are the things I have pursued within the electorate of Cowan. As I said before, the crime figures are down, and that is greatly reassuring. They will never be down as far as I would want them to be—that is, to the zero level—but I do applaud the state government for the work they have done. While some may say that the jails in Western Australia are very full, I would say that real accountability is at last being shown. I welcome the fact that community and government are working together and I look forward to more of it in the future.