Thefts out of control

FROM Wednesday’s newspaper, it seems the police have given up on thefts around Cairns. Now the villains are those who leave unlocked doors, even for a minute.

If you do not catch them, it keeps the statistics down of those poor disadvantaged youths, who are only trying to survive. Sorry to know the courts are hopeless, and the police only interested in motoring offences, revenue-raising activities. Chris Bradley, Kewarra Beach 1907: Commonwealth and South Australia agree on the transfer of Northern Territory to the Commonwealth. 1971: Unmanned Soviet space capsule sends back radio and television signals from planet Mars. 1995: The Australian Federal Court finds Aboriginal Affairs Minister Robert Tickner failed to follow due process in placing a 25-year ban on the Hindmarsh Island Bridge. 1996: After nearly 18 days aloft, Columbia and its astronauts return to Earth, ending the longest-ever space shuttle flight. 2016: A teenager is jailed for seven years in Melbourne after planning to set off a homemade bomb in the city’s CBD; his sentence is later increased to 11 years after an appeal by Commonwealth prosecutors. 2017: Federal parliament votes to make same-sex marriage legal in Australia (above).