Welcome crime calls overdue

YOU know we are getting close to an election when the Labor MPS get up and start talking about crime.

For the past six months crime has been out of control in Townsville with only the COVID-19 lockdown slowing down Townsville crooks and youth offenders.

Even when the town lost four young lives in a horrific stolen car crash there were no solutions brought forward by our local members.

But yesterday Thuringowa MP Aaron Harper, a man who once said Townsville didn’t have a crime problem, stood up and said “it’s time” to clean up the city’s crimeriddled streets.

This comes after another horror week of stolen cars across the city, the worst incident being the assault of an alleged vigilante who was chased down by a group of car thieves.

The cars crashed outside Kirwan Police Station before the thieves jumped on the car, stomped on the windscreen and assaulted the victim.

Mr Harper is now calling for a specialist police operation to crack down on car thieves.

Unsurprisingly, the LNP candidate for Thuringowa, Natalie Marr, said it was “too little, too late”.

“Parliament sits for the last week before the election and after five long years of toeing the party line, Mr Harper will no doubt finally start throwing a few chocolates around,” she said.

Mr Harper was not alone in making an announcement on crime yesterday.

His counterpart, Townsville MP Scott Stewart, announced security guards would soon be hitching rides on Townsville buses to protect drivers from violent passengers.

Bus drivers have been robbed, sexually assaulted and taunted while servicing the region’s public transport routes, sparking a call from the community to fix the issue.

Thankfully something is being done on both issues – it’s long overdue – but one would forgive many in the community for thinking it’s nothing more than a ploy to win votes in the coming election.