David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I draw the attention of the House to feedback that I have received from the people of Wakefield, whom I have the privilege of representing in this place. I spend a considerable amount of time visiting local train stations, meeting with people, handing out surveys and seeking feedback. I regularly hold whole-day community information stands in the Elizabeth, Munno Para and Craigmore shops, as well as listening posts in country towns such as Clare, Kapunda, Riverton and Balaklava. I also visit shops there, send out newsletters and get lots of responses from people.

In looking for areas where the federal government could be working more effectively with people, one of the things that has surprised me since leaving the military to become a member of this place is that some of the concerns that are highest in people’s minds are not federal government issues at all. One that is probably at the top of the list of concerns that people have about the quality of their lives—and, to be honest, they really do not care who fixes it; whether it is local government, state government or the federal government, they just want it fixed—is the issue of crime. I refer to crime that affects their personal safety, the safety of their property and also safety on the streets, particularly with respect to the issue of hoon drivers.

Hoon driving is something that affects people in a number of ways. Perhaps the most obvious ways, as you drive around, are the burnout marks that you see on streets. When I have doorknocked on people’s homes, they point to the tyre marks and say, ‘What you didn’t experience was at one o’clock this morning the unbearable stench of burning rubber from people doing that,’ as well as the noise and the associated behaviour and activity which almost hold some of these people captive in their own homes. They do not feel that they have the freedom to enjoy the neighbourhood that they perhaps helped to establish some 20, 30 or 40 years ago, because of the crime and the behaviour of some young drivers on the streets.

Safety is another issue. I recently dealt with Mrs Pam Golley from the electorate of Wakefield, who is raising a vocal group of citizens to look at safety concerns around the school crossings near Crittenden Road used by students from Smithfield Plains primary and high schools. As well, older people living along that road and Peachey Road are put at risk by the senseless, dangerous and illegal driving habits of people. Some of the surveys that have been conducted to look at the speed at which vehicles are driven along that road, even during drop-off times when young children are going to and from school, show that speeds are 20 to 30 kilometres an hour above the limit for a closed-in suburban road. At other times, during evenings, the speed is double, or more than double, the legal limit in that area.

Residents are concerned, and rightly concerned, that their cries for help are not being listened to in terms of putting in place, preferably, traffic lights to provide some level of control and certainty for older people and for young students who wish to cross that road, or even a pedestrian crossing with some kind of traffic-calming device which would act to physically make drivers slow down and give some degree of certainty to older people and young children that they can cross the road in safety. I have been assisting Pam and her group to work with the local government. Collectively, we will be approaching the state government to see what steps can be taken to improve safety.

One of the most significant points that people raise around driving is hoon driving and the behaviour on the road of people who are quite inconsiderate and often are driving vehicles which appear to be—and in practice, I am told by the police, often are—unroadworthy. I have met with people from Neighbourhood Watch in Elizabeth, including Ferdi Pitt, the South Australia Police superintendent there. In fact, I have had Senator Chris Ellison, the federal Minister for Justice and Customs, who also funds the Community Crime Prevention Program, address that group and talk about ways in which the federal government can help. There are things that we have already done in terms of neighbourhood and precinct safety—things like closed circuit television systems, which have reduced crime. I will certainly be working with local people to see how we can help in that regard.

But, on the traffic side of things, one of the things that I have raised both with South Australia Police and also with the South Australian Minister for Police, Mr Paul Holloway, is a system which is in use in the UK as well as in New South Wales. This is a camera system which reads the numberplate of a vehicle and, in real time, compares it with a database of vehicle registration so that police can tell in real time whether a vehicle that is passing them has been stolen or is unregistered. In the first two months of the operation of this system, the New South Wales Police were able to pull some 2½ thousand vehicles off the road. Many of those vehicles were found to be unroadworthy. A system like that, which is a small investment from a government’s perspective, actually provides a significant benefit to the community in terms of providing a safer environment for its children and its members to be on the road either on foot, on their bikes or in vehicles.

The South Australian government has come back to me and said that they are looking at a pilot of a couple of these cameras and they are currently going to use those as part of random breath-testing stations. My challenge to the minister is to expand that system so that they can use it in real time and take significant numbers of vehicles off the road and to set that barrier in place so that people realise that, if they try to circumvent the system, if they do the wrong thing by society by driving vehicles that are unregistered or, even worse, if they are driving a vehicle that they have stolen, they will be caught and they will be dealt with. We owe no less to the people of our community.

I have spoken with Senator Ellison about what options there are for the federal government to help out as part of the Community Crime Prevention Program and, if the state government cannot find the money—or will not find the money—to purchase that equipment, to see what options there are for us to purchase the equipment. We do not have the mandate to use it, but if we can help by providing the equipment, which the South Australian police can then provide the manpower to use, then that is a role that I am more than happy to try to play so that we can keep the streets in our area safer.

Crime is a local issue, but it is an issue that affects people. I believe all three levels of government, as well as the community, are beholden to continue to work together to find ways to combat it. I am disappointed that, in the state system in South Australia, the community crime prevention programs have been scaled back. I am pleased to see that, from a federal level, we are still putting money into that. I was very pleased just last month to be able to announce some $498,000 which, under the National Community Crime Prevention Program, has gone to a primary school in Elizabeth and a group called Good Beginnings and their Turn Around Program, which are looking to increase family resilience so that young people have the support they need to prevent their move into crime and other activities that are negative for the community. So, whether it is through prevention or whether it is through working with the state and local authorities to give them the resources they need to then correct criminal or antisocial behaviour, it is certainly my intent to work collaboratively with whoever is prepared to work with us to make the community of Wakefield a safer place.