01 March 2011
Mr MORRIS (Mornington) — It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak on this very first measure of what will be a veritable raft of measures from the Baillieu government aimed at improving public safety in this state over the next three and a bit years.
Before I proceed to make the comments I intend to make, I want to pick up on one point that the member for Yuroke made towards the end of her contribution. I thought that almost every other point she made was either less than relevant or completely wrong, which is unusual, but she made one point that I think is correct — that is, that we need to be tough on the causes of crime.
Where the former government failed was that it was not also tough on crime itself. It is very easy to dismiss any measures to enforce the law as being tough on crime but not on the causes of crime. You need to do both.
I believe this legislation is tangible proof of the approach this government will take in discharging its role. It is tangible proof of a practical approach to governing, of an approach that will see us bring in measures that will actually work.
We are not concerned with being seen to be doing the right thing; it is about getting things done. It is about improving the situation for the people of Victoria. It is about tackling issues of genuine concern and doing so in an effective manner.
This very first measure in terms of public safety, brought in on the very first day that Parliament sat, is a measure to tackle an issue which has bedevilled public transport and particularly the rail system in this state for far too long.
For the last four years I have sat here — and some of my colleagues have sat here for considerably longer — and put up with a government content to hide behind manipulated statistics.
Mr McIntosh interjected.
Mr MORRIS — Exactly. As the Leader of the House interjects, they would not admit that there was a problem, but as the Leader of the House and I certainly found out when I had the pleasure of accompanying him on visits around the state in his former role as shadow minister for police, we sat in muster rooms around the state where again and again we were told the same things about the same sorts of issues.
Perhaps there was some slight difference depending on the environment, but it was about the same sorts of issues: it was about police numbers, it was about having troops on the streets, and it was about having a visible presence.
It was not about detecting crimes once they had been committed; it was about being out there and being up‑front and preventing the crime in the first place.
Yet for the last four years we sat in this house and listened to the former government’s constant mantra about a lower crime rate — that the crime rate had gone down, that the crime rate was diminishing.
Year after year we had those statistics put in front of us indicating that things were improving. Members might think improving the rate of bicycle theft is important — not to belittle the offence of bicycle theft, it is important — but in the scheme of things when you compare it with serious assaults, it pales into insignificance, and that is where the drops were occurring in the crime rates, the minor offences, the petty offences.
The issues of substance — the crimes where people are actually getting hurt and the crimes where people are being intimidated into changing their habits, into changing their patterns, into changing the way they live their lives, and in this instance being intimidated into perhaps not using public transport as often as they would like — those issues were simply not being tackled, yet we had this constant spin of ‘the crime rate is going down’.
It was a classic example over an extended period of manipulating statistics in an attempt to prove the spin. The approach was develop the story, develop the spin, and then try and find a series of figures to justify the case that was being put forward.
We have had proof again in the last 24 hours or so, where varying sets of figures, to put the nicest possible interpretation on it, have been produced relating to the central Melbourne area.
I congratulate the Minister for Police and Emergency Services on his decision to refer those issues to the Ombudsman because the Ombudsman has proved that he has the tenacity and ability to cut through the layers to get right to the bottom of the issue and get to the facts, and we might finally after 4 or 5 years, or perhaps11 years, get a real answer on what has been happening with the crime statistics in this state.
It was a triumph of spin— but not over substance, because there was precious little substance in the former government’s approach to crime prevention. It was in fact a triumph of spin over reality, of spin over the facts.
Absolute proof — not that it is needed; it is quite clear — is that the former government was out of touch. It was a poll‑driven government, a government driven by research, by focus groups, by spin, a government whose only concern since 1999 has been about winning and holding government.
It was not about good public policy. It was not about governing in the public interest. It was not about working on a real future for all Victorians. It was about retaining government, retaining access to staff and offices, and perhaps most significantly of all — and when the anticorruption commission is in operation, it will deal with this issue — retaining the opportunity to distribute patronage: securing supporter bases through the distribution of patronage.
That is not about governing in the public interest in any way at all.
If members want a concrete example that nothing has changed since 27 November, I can tell them that when this bill was first being debated I received an SMS requesting my attendance at a marginal seats committee meeting in the Labor Party room. I am sure I would not have been welcome. I certainly do not consider myself to represent a marginal seat. I did when I was first elected, but I have been there and do not want to go back there again.
The reality is that there was an opportunity to use time in the Parliament to debate issues of real concern and significance to the community, yet it was being wasted on a marginal seats committee meeting. The current members opposite clearly have learnt nothing from their defeat.
I want to pick up on a comment that was made by the member for Bundoora and repeated by the member for Yuroke, that the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee (SARC) had not considered this bill.
I have in front of me the report of the committee on this bill. It was tabled this afternoon, but perhaps people did not catch up with that. The report is comprehensive. It sets out the purposes of the bill in terms of amendments to sections 118B(1) and 118B(1A), and then the committee made no further comment. The committee considered the bill and made no comment.
As someone who reads SARC’s reports with interest and frequently picks up the issues that the committee identifies — and in the 56th Parliament the committee did some very useful work, particularly in identifying some of the more ridiculous excesses of the charter — I find that work useful. The committee made no comment on this bill, and on that basis it would appear that it had no concerns about it.
Today we are debating an excellent policy initiative. We are debating an issue that is critical to many residents of the Mornington electorate who use the Frankston line. It is a practical response to a very real problem, and I commend the bill to the house.
Legislative Assembly 1 March 2011
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