Cop- out on crime
ANOTHER cop- out by those who are elected ( and paid) to govern us. The Premier has appointed a distinguished exmember of the Defence Force to go around and talk to people for 12 months and report back to her with recommendations on how to deal with the escalating crime rate in this city.
Surely, our local elected members are already ( or should be) doing this. Are they not talking to the Premier on a regular basis and feeding back to her the dire situation facing our community.
Is the Premier not talking regularly with senior members of the Queensland Police Service and the Police Minister.? Why is it necessary to appoint a third party ( with no disrespect intended towards the retired defence force member) to do the job that is obviously not being done by those tasked with this responsibility?
The members of the QPS who have to deal with this crime on a daily basis must be so frustrated. They do their job ( often with many restrictions placed on them) and locate and arrest the offenders to only see them released and back on to the streets to reoffend again.
Surely, a good place to start would be to review the leniency of our current laws. It would appear that our current system is not working and allows perpetrators of crime to become repeat offenders as they know they have nothing to fear from the present system.
You only have to look at some of the countries who are our near neighbours where crime is almost non- existent and not tolerated due to severe penalties delivered through their legal system. There is no such deterrent in our current legal system.
A message to our politicians at all levels of government. Come on – how about just getting on with the job that the community has elected you to do – to safeguard us whether in our own homes or if walking in the streets. Stop passing the buck and coming up with delay tactics to stall making those tough decisions.
We don’t want another debacle similar to the one where a group of people was established to provide recommendations to address our critical water shortage issue and then come up with similar recommendations that were put forward decades ago with the end result that our supposed water solution is still two years away.
Surely, with the significant resources available to government bureaucracy, it is possible to come up with some solutions that can be implemented to address the serious issue of crime in this city.
It is about time that some leadership and vision is shown to the Townsville community, as any further inaction is not acceptable. GRAHAM ASPINALL,
Kirwan.