I BELIEVE

everyone should feel safe in their own home and on the streets of their community.

Sadly, that sense of security has vanished across much of the Gold Coast.

Since Annastacia Palaszczuk became Premier, crime has spiralled out of control on the Gold Coast.

Assaults have risen by a staggering 127 per cent, while car theft is up 69 per cent and robbery is up 58 per cent.

Labor thinks these shocking figures are acceptable. I don’t.

I can promise the Gold Coast that an LNP Government will stop this crimewave in its tracks.

There will be no more slaps on the wrist under a government I lead.

Instead, there will be real consequences for offenders who rob, assault and terrorise members of the public.

The LNP has a comprehensive plan to target the young offenders who are responsible for the Gold Coast’s crimewave.

If the LNP wins the next state election, we will introduce mandatory detention for young offenders convicted of a third offence.

We will introduce 24/7 monitoring of young offenders on bail and breaching bail will once again become a criminal offence.

Labor’s soft policies tipped the balance of justice in favour of offenders. The LNP will tip the scales back towards victims and community safety.

But an LNP Government will also do more to rehabilitate young offenders and prevent more youths from turning to crime in the first place.

Community Payback Farms will be used to educate and rehabilitate repeat offenders before they are released, while our Justice Reinvestment program will increase early intervention to improve the physical and social well-being of children in deprived communities.

This is a comprehensive plan that puts community safety first and backs our police with more resources and tougher laws.

Too many lives have been ruined by Labor’s crimewave.

It’s time for the revolving door of Labor’s youth justice system to be slammed shut.

But the only way we can do it is by changing the government on October 31.

DEB FRECKLINGTON, LNP STATE LEADER

INDIGENOUS Australians live with a very real gap, in wellbeing, that affects their ability to thrive within broader Australian society.

It was only 1967 when leftie Green Australians voted to include Aboriginal people in the census of their own country.

The referendum finally recognised Aboriginal people as citizens in their own land.

Between 1901 and 1970 children were forcibly removed from indigenous families and raised, by what the government saw, in superior western culture.

Some people still see white people as superior, failing to recognise the injustices faced by Aboriginal Australians.

T Brien’s opinion (GCB, 22/06) that there is no institutional racism in this country, simply that indigenous people commit more crimes, is ludicrous and insulting.

Half of the young people in juvenile detention are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Two per cent of our population makes up more than a quarter of our prison population.

An Aboriginal man leaving school is more likely to go to jail than university. If you are an Aboriginal man, you are 15 times more likely to be imprisoned than a nonAboriginal man.

T Brien thinks that Jacinta Price is the answer to the injustice faced by indigenous people.

Jacinta Price’s only concern about the statistics clearly showing racial abuse, is to condemn the ABC for reporting it.

Aboriginal elders object to Jacinta Price talking for the indigenous people saying: “For years we have observed Ms Price continually vilify Aboriginal peoples and cultures, and ridicule the compounding pain and suffering of our communities.”

She doesn’t even want to change the date of Australia Day, preferring to celebrate the day Australia was invaded.

T Brien’s suggestion that I would like to disband the police force is a falsehood, I have never suggested disbanding the police service. I am saying that the police need to be retrained.

When allegations of misuse of power are reported, an independent commission should investigate it, not their workmates, like the current system.

Stiff penalties should be implemented for police who abuse their position.

Whistleblowers should be protected and rewarded not vilified.

Another point I would like to make, I am not a member of the Greens or any other political party.

I am chief spokesman for me, myself and I, and no-one else.

SHAUN CUNNEEN, MOUNT NATHAN

AS we all know we live in very troubled times regarding both our health and finances.

People are perishing left, right and centre and employees are being made redundant in their hundreds.

Yet in the newspapers, on TV, on the radio and all over social media, the charities are bombarding us with their never ending pleas for more and more money.

Where on earth do they think the money will be coming from? Joe public is not a bottomless pit.

I have supported charities in the past but it has now come to a stop as it seems the more you give the more they want.

FRANK TEWKESBURY, ARUNDEL