PAUL McCUE: Police officers must not be treated like the only solution to our community issues

YOU’D be forgiven for thinking that the Territory’s police officers were the first, last and only point of call for the community’s issues.

The very nature of police work is running in, when others run out.

When disaster or danger strikes and the rest of us are trying to get away, our men and women in blue are arriving on the scene to help.

For some years now, your police officers, the same ones who are called on to respond to fatal traffic accidents, horrendous domestic and family violence incidents and assaults, to name but a few ‘calls of duty,’ have been stationed, like a security guard, outside the front of a takeaway liquor outlet.

The Territory Labor Government has hung its ‘governing for all Territorians’ hat on the reintroduction of the Banner Drinkers Register (BDR), coupled with an ongoing rhetoric about how bad the Territory’s alcohol issues are.

Our community is angry and rightfully so, our recent crime statistics are sobering and we’re all fed up.

Standing outside a bottleshop is not, and should not, be a police duty. Reducing the supply of alcohol and bettering crime statistics should not be solely funded by the public purse, but by alternate regulatory bodies and the liquor industry itself.

For every police officer on a bottle shop, that’s one less finding the crook that broke into your car, your house or your small business. That’s one less police officer who can respond to your 000 call.

If the Territory Government is serious about fixing our communities issues with alcohol, and the resulting trauma and crime it causes, the BDR should be fast-tracked, and introduced as part of a whole of government, holistic approach to alcohol supply restriction.

The Government’s own statistics reference one takeaway liquor outlet for every 353 adults, the government claims that this is ‘enough’. This is not only enough; it is far too many (outlets).

Our association – representing nearly 100 per cent of the Territory’s police officers – noted with interest that the 18member police officer ‘youth squad’ introduced to tackle youth crime is the same number of cops – 18 – standing outside bottle shops each and every day in Alice Springs.

We welcome the Government’s attempts to address the current crimes rates and juvenile justice issues, but please, let’s not handcuff our police continually with other duties without full and proper consideration on the impact that these changes have on already limited police numbers.

There are fewer police in the Territory now than there were three years ago, but the responsibility of our police is only increasing.

The announcement earlier this month about police involvement in the bail legislative changes is another example of simply laying on a task that should not lie solely with our thinning blue line.

Our police are being pulled from pillar to post, while more and more money is thrown at a youth justice system that is broken, worsening crime statistics and a methodology which doesn’t allow for proactive policing.

It is time for the Government to stop leaning on the Territory’s force to do the continual dirty work, that is simply not police work. The “do more with less” motto has to end. We need to let our officers be police officers.

Paul McCue is the president of the Northern Territory Police Association.