Crime hits a raw nerve
A SUGGESTION that Cairns Regional Council fund a security force across the city’s suburbs has split opinion among the four mayoral candidates.
Division 8 independent candidates Todd Olds first touted the idea after seeing the model in the City of Stirling in Western Australia.
Other candidates like the proposal in the fight against youth crime, including mayoral hopeful Georgia Babatsikos.
However, Mayor Bob Manning said it was not the council’s role but that of the State Government which provided law and order.
CALLS to mobilise a private security force across the city’s suburbs have split opinion among Cairns Regional Council mayoral candidates.
The idea first burst into public consciousness at the suggestion of division 8 independent candidates Todd Olds, who saw the City of Stirling in Western Australia’s model and called for it to be replicated in Cairns.
It has since been touted as a potential tool in the fight against youth crime by several other electoral hopefuls, including potential mayor Georgia Babatsikos.
“Given the out of control crime in Cairns, it’s vital council steps in because we don’t have time, can’t wait for state or federal funding,” she said.
Ms Babatsikos said the council was spending millions of dollars fixing up an old building – the former Courthouse Hotel – when its priority should be youth crime.
It is clearly a big issue for voters with 91 per cent of Far North Speaks survey respondents believing youth crime was out of control.
Mayor Bob Manning argued the council’s role was to help the State Government where it could, but it should not be in the business of trying to replicate the police.
“Law and order and policing is clearly a State Government matter,” he said.
“That’s not to say the local government shouldn’t work closely in any way it can and we do that here.
“We spend close to $2 million a year on patrols for people who don’t have any authority to do more than they’re doing – they can only talk to people, they can’t arrest them and they can’t take stuff from them.
“But we do that to try to make the city a safer place.”
Cairns NQSA Team candidate Jen Sackley saw merit in security guards patrolling the whole region – not just the CBD – and reporting illegal behaviour to police.
She said the next mayor needed the “guts” to spend what they could to implement such programs and others to stimulate the economy.
“Of course, it is going to cost money,” she said.
“Do not elect me unless you’re willing to invest in this city.”
Independent Ian Lydiard said expanded security could be part of the mix but it did not go anywhere near what was really needed.
“Putting on security guards is like putting a Band-Aid on a shark bite,” he said.
“It’s not going to be fixed overnight.”
Mr Lydiard believed most of the council’s chief power was its ability to lobby the State Government for programs that went to the core of pressing problems. “Whatever happens regarding youth crime, it has to be about generational change,” he said.