REMOVE THE KID GLOVES

A SENIOR cop’s frustration with the callous nature of youth crime bubbled over in a media interview this week, with him asking what the parents were doing.

It is a comment uttered often by many, shocked by a host of factors including the increasing level of violence, lack of concern for victims, teens hunting in packs and the young age of offenders. So where are the parents and do they care?

As frontline police lament, why are the courts so willing to keep giving the same juvenile thugs the “get out of jail free” card, allowing them back on the streets to keep offending instead of using the tough-love powers available.

Chances are that many of the parents are drugs users, lost alcoholics and criminals, not caring about the kids and in all probability having been the victims themselves of abuse in all its forms when they were children. It is a dreadful cycle that needs to be smashed.

Debate has already begun about the need to intervene with families that are lost causes, with calls – particularly now in a climate of outrage over the disgraceful handling of tragic cases like the death of Caboolture toddler Mason Jet Lee – for children whose lives are at risk to be removed and adopted into loving homes.

Children who are abused and teens who run amok time and again are symptoms of extreme failure in the home and in the judicial and government systems that are supposed to safeguard their welfare. This perhaps explains the youths’ actions, but it does not pardon them.

When a genuine account is given of their sorry background, of course there is sympathy. But the angry children who have decided to bash and steal their way to notoriety cannot be allowed to keep reoffending and laughing about how weak the courts and government agencies are when they receive the usual slap on the wrist. The packs using the heavy and light rail to target suburbs for crime descend “like locusts”, one police officer said.

The Gold Coast has a major problem with crime, yet the city has supposedly been in pandemic lockdown. Instead of parking highly trained officers on nannystate duty at the border checkpoints, the Government has to realise it has been business as usual in the crime hotspots. Adult and juvenile crims are still at it.

Assaults continue – and we fear the pandemic restrictions have made life hell for frightened women and children locked behind closed doors with family tyrants. Cars are being stolen. And in a worrying trend, young thugs are armed to the teeth with knives.

BLOW that whistle ref. And parents, load the kids in the family wagon and head on down to the sports fields.

The survival of kids’ sport depends on families backing their clubs, which have taken a big hit from the lockdowns and restrictions.

The clubs are struggling with severely diminished finances and a mountain of COVID-safe requirements if they want to operate. Clubs always have their stalwarts, the volunteers who do the hard yards. It’s time to give them a hand.

REGARDING Mayor Tom Tate’s letter (GCB 30/5):

I was amused by the Mayor proposing the JobKeeper program to be extended to support Gold Coast businesses until December yet supporting the border closure. The Mayor is so far off the pace as many tourism businesses and travel agents will need support well beyond December based on these border closures and no international tourists.

While JobKeeper is saving businesses now and saving jobs for workers, it is a temporary financial support structure and providing a false economy.

I am sure tourism and travel agency authorities are lobbying the Federal Government for continued support but it won’t matter if the borders remain closed any longer.

The Mayor’s plea for JobKeeper to be extended might appear that he has Gold Coast businesses at heart, but it was a very weak statement considering his stance.

Many have asked these last two weeks, what medical advice has the Mayor been given for him to support the border closure remaining? The Mayor has also been asked to contact the Commonwealth chief medical officers to get the real medical advice which has always been clear – there has never been, and still isn’t, any need to close the state borders.

We can assume he hasn’t done this and as at Friday, he is still showing no leadership and appears to be missing in action, only saying “I’m waiting to hear from the Premier on the latest medical advice”.

So the question is Mayor Tate, can you please tell the people of the Gold Coast what medical advice the Premier has given you which is so compelling you continue to support the border closure?

You can either share this information,

or you can’t or you won’t.

Affected Gold Coast business owners want an answer on this medical advice from the Premier, or if our suspicions are correct, we want strong support from the Mayor to open the borders.

I FIND it inconceivable and negligent that state treasury failed to model the impact of the Queensland border closure (GCB, 5/6). A shot from the lip without assessing the consequences.

Scott Morrison’s apt description of the COVID-19 being an economic torpedo highlights the plight of the victims. Gold Coast businesses and workers alike left floundering and drowning in turbulent waters while our State Government, admitting they did not factor in their plight, has no rescue plan.

But for JobKeeper, JobSeeker and other federal support packages things could be much, much worse. This leaves the bulk of the enormous economic burden of community support at the federal level. It makes one wonder why Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk mooted that September may be when the internal border will be opened, just when the federal packages are expected to end. Not a bad strategy or convenience coming into an October election when someone else is paying the vast bulk of the bill.

The risk to our economy, our jobs and those who provide them is clear and the effect of keeping our borders closed is just as devastating if not more so than COVID-19. About 22,700 people on the Gold Coast have lost their jobs while businesses lose their client base, much of it due to the border closures.

There will be many more each day these borders remain shut. On

the Gold Coast we have had 192 cases with zero deaths. Obviously, balancing the risk factors is not this government’s strength.

The curve has been flattened here and in other states which I thought was the goal, finding a point where we could get back to a reasonable level of normality with obvious levels of COVID-19 protections attached. From a community standpoint, flattening our economy to a level of almost irrecoverable subsidence was never a part of the bargain.

It is time to adjust the balance and open our internal borders, support our businesses, those who have lost their jobs, and get the economy and government revenue flowing again. Bluster that this State Government will not be bullied by the Prime Minister or other premiers is political rubbish, a diversion to avoid decision that incorporates risk. This is not effective leadership. It is those who are floundering and drowning in economic despair, the victims who are asking for our borders to be reopened.

It is past time our State Government understood that nothing is without risk, especially when the effect of economic catastrophe is a clear and present danger. Stop straddling the fence and do what you were elected to do. Our economic welfare and security are just as important.

THIS State Government is unbelievable. How can they introduce tough stringent measures like border closures without knowing how much it would affect the economy and those involved in the tourism industry?

A drop in revenue in a cafe for example would affect revenue to the Queensland Government. It is their responsibility to know where government income is going to come from. No wonder they can’t do an interim budget.

AUSTRALIA’S border closure, plus impact of bushfires discouraging international tourism, plus tracing and social distancing, have had the effect of saving Australia, and, in a most exemplary fashion, Queensland, from the multi-death pandemic catastrophes and dangerous second wave outbreaks still occurring worldwide.

Interesting, but sad, to see how many “hurry open border” bystander vocalists would quietly go to ground if there were another outbreak. (GCB, 5/6, State Government admits to not counting the cost of controversial state border closure).

Premier Palaszczuk and Deputy Premier Miles, a medical doctor, plus state medical advisor might be given a modicum of credit for efforts to save lives.

Minister Miles notes Victorians, with infection still occurring, discouraged from visiting their CBD.

Rather than giving gratuitous advice to Premier the PM should bend his mind to more fiscal support for tourism and retail sector of sixth largest city.

SURELY the gentle folk on Tomewin should have been crying foul weeks ago that their access to Murwillumbah was closed.

Turning to the media now as the whole issue of the border being closed is almost over would appear to many has more to do with politics than the lack of access.

Then again it certainly went over well to the evening television audience.