Coast’s Runaway crime rate
A RECENT policing crisis at Runaway Bay station has contributed to a huge spike in crime in the city’s northern suburbs, warn two LNP candidates.
David Crisafulli in Broadwater and Sam O’Connor in Bonney have crunched the latest Queensland Police Service data and maintain it mirrors the concerns of locals about, break and enters, hooning and assaults.
The figures show a near doubling of the number of unlawful entry offences in suburbs like Biggera Waters, they said.
But top Gold Coast cop Brian Codd has questioned the interpretation of the data, indicating Runaway Bay station was fully policed and saying he had more concern about crime rates at Coomera.
The two candidates said the data, covering 12 months to August, tracks nearly five times more assaults and almost double the amount of robberies in Biggera Waters, including an attack in a local supermarket.
In Coombabah, where a Gold Coast mother was slashed with a machete in July, assaults have almost doubled.
Mr O’Connor told the Bulletin the spike in offences was not coincidental. “If you weaken the laws and put less police on the ground there can only be one result and that is more crime,” he said.
“Law and order keeps being raised as one of the major issues we need to fix in Queensland and I intend to do my bit.”
Mr Crisafulli said local police needed the resources and laws to back up their commitment to the community.
“The Runaway Bay Station has an allocation of 24 officers and a big part of this crime spike can be slated home to a period where the State Government allowed nearly half of thosepositions to sit vacant,” he said.
“Whether it be restoring the tough bikie laws or dealing with young repeat offenders we are not going to take the soft on crime approach we have seen from Labor.”
Assistant Commissioner Codd considers Runaway Bay the fourth lowest for crime out of ten divisions across the city and across a longer period views break and enters “projecting on a downward trend”.
The average number of break and enters across a three-month period amounted to five each week, he said.
“There are no police vacancies at Runaway Bay. It is a low crime area. Coomera is by far and away the fastest in terms of growing crime,” Assistant Commissioner Codd said.