REVIEW VITAL FOR COP HUB

POLICING on the Gold Coast is never easy.

But before they even get to tackle the bad guys, cops here have to contend with the city’s shape and size.

Population growth and resulting heavy traffic make moving from one end of this linear city to the other a task in itself.

However, that is what the police service has taken on in its bid to find new ways to deploy resources in response to demand.

Full marks for seeking ways to improve efficiency, but cynical observers will suggest it is just a way to keep plugging gaps caused by inadequate funding and staffing. A flying squad approach might work in a condensed city built around a central business district, but can it be made to work here? Whether the District Tasking and Co-ordination Centre (DTACC), set up to deliver effective use of personnel, is achieving its aims is a bone of contention within the ranks.

Upper echelons in the police service believe it is – or will be once teething problems are resolved. Police Minister Mark Ryan recently trumpeted it as a success. Senior officers might however concede the central nerve centre has not worked as well as hoped so far, but it is early days still and they are determined to push ahead.

Other ranks see it more as a matter of rearranging the deck chairs. They are concerned the system takes a senior officer off the road to monitor screens and phones with a DTACC team while, according to sources, a single district duty officer can be left to charge from Coolangatta to Coomera to deal with major incidents. They say the on-road DDO is overworked and stressed.

The Bulletin has confirmed an internal review of the DTACC initiative has been ordered. This is critical. It has to take in the views of all parties. If the service’s most senior officers are adamant the DTACC will continue, then it has to be made to work.

That might be as simple as building pathways to ensure effective communications. It might involve a reassessment of Gold Coast police staffing.

Instead of just seeking ways to deploy officers from a central hub to target hot spots, which is not guaranteed to get around issues with insufficient police numbers, the minister and commissioner should not rule out a return to the old idea of putting adequate numbers of officers into police stations the length of the city. SHARK nets and drum lines have protected locals and tourists here since the 1960s. The fatality-free record at our patrolled beaches is evidence they work.

But no such protection exists in the Gold Coast’s lakes, rivers and canals, and sadly two fatalities were recorded in the murky lakes behind Miami and Burleigh in 2002 and 2003 when lone swimmers were bitten and bled to death.

This is not a matter of scaremongering. A marine expert says people have forgotten the risks of swimming in murky water at dawn and dusk and warns an attack will occur unless swimmers start using their common sense. Sharks feed at those times. Bull sharks, which are an aggressive species, live in the canals and lakes. Be aware.

SHOCK ... horror.

I posted a parcel to Deer Park (outer Melbourne) on Tuesday around midday.

It arrived on Thursday morning. I could not believe it.

Australia Post takes a lot of knocks so when it does something good then it should be recognised.

FRANK TEWKESBURY, SOUTHPORT

SURELY a law can be passed to deport seriously offending African youth and others to their home countries?

I really don’t care about conditions they might face back home but they must not be allowed to wreak havoc on law-abiding Australian citizens.

If they consider it fun, let’s see if a free flight will extend the smiles on their faces!

KEN JOHNSTON, ROCHEDALE SOUTH

IT seems Andrew McKinnon didn’t look too hard when he wrote about one of his Labor mates in this week’s GCB.

Mick De Brenni is not the only surfer in the Queensland Parliament, there’s a few on both sides including Dan Purdie, the MP for Ninderry.

MICHAEL HART, MEMBER FOR BURLEIGH

RICHARD Di Natale loves to preach to us Australians that we live on stolen land, and says our nation isn’t legitimate, and has the audacity to say that we live in this country illegally.

This Greens Senator known for his rudeness and arrogance, would happily like to see every block of

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ground on which the average Australian home sits upon, handed back to the Aborigines.

For God’s sake, have you ever heard of a statement so absolutely stupid?

Yet this hypocrite owns 50 lush acres of “so-called stolen land” property in the foothills of Victoria’s Otway Ranges, that he failed to declare he owned when he entered politics, which he is required by law to declare.

How has he been allowed to remain in politics?

This Senator claimed that he’d forgotten he had purchased this $2.3 million property.

How on Earth could anyone, even with only an ounce of intelligent, forget something like that?

Are we the public expected to believe these lies and deceit from a high-profile Senator?

This is typical of the Greens who all appear to suffer with selected

memory syndrome, when the media front them and put pressure on them to confess to their lies and deceit.

How many more high-profile politicians are hiding assets of huge value?

KEN WADE, TWEED HEADS

PAST climate signatures can be found in geological evidence but it is patchy, vague and subject to interpretation. Geological evidence cannot be compared to modern weather recording because the rocks tell tales of centuries while weather recording is about hours.

Modern weather records have suffered from tampering by alarmist scientists. Past records have been “adjusted” and the original records binned. Recording sites have moved and equipment has changed.

We can’t compare today’s weather to last century’s weather