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

One of the claimed hallmarks of the state Labor government's attempt to fix crime in Townsville is the option for magistrates to require 16- and 17-year-olds to wear a GPS tracker or ankle bracelet while on bail. Well, I can tell you that this has been an absolute failure. Even Townsville's own police officers, who do an absolutely fantastic job, think it's a joke.

In an article in the Courier Mail earlier this month, a senior police officer who works in the north described the state Labor government's handling of the policy as 'a bumbling mess'. The officer said:

The anklets are a failure. They don't work with adult criminals, so they certainly won't work with juveniles. The officer went on to say:

The anklets are monitored by a UK-based company, who monitor the devices from there. They then forward a job to the relevant agency.

Often these messages are merely about the battery being flat.

…   …   …

All the anklets do is give the public the impression that this monitoring is being strictly enforced, when it's not, and a false sense of security.

What more evidence do you need that the state Labor government's crime policy is an abysmal failure than a senior police officer saying that the anklets only go off when the battery is dead?

If you need more evidence, how about this? This problem is so bad that magistrates who have the option to require a GPS tracker don't do it because it's a bad policy. The Townsville Bulletin recently reported that a 16-year-old who was in court for car theft, stealing and assault and was eligible for a GPS tracker was released on bail without one because of intermittent phone reception at his school. Because of the reception issues and the need for the device to be monitored 24 hours a day, he was deemed not suitable. Now this 16-year-old is back in the community without GPS monitoring.

If the state Labor government had listened to the community's expectations and changed the youth justice legislation, this teenager would not have been granted bail. I've said many times before that our three state Labor MPs need to stand up to their south-east-corner bosses and start working harder for the people of Townsville, who are still living in fear of being the next victim of a violent crime. The community expects breach of bail to be made an offence, the community expects the removal of 'detention as a last resort' from legislation and the community expects the government to put an end to the holiday-like conditions at the Cleveland Youth Detention Centre. Stop hiding behind the Premier, pretending the policy is working. You are not fooling anyone.