Sunday 19 February 2012

Nats MP ignores local crime stats and tries on a bit of Goorie bashing while pretending that he isn't


The Daily Examiner on 17th February: “EIGHT to 10 juvenile offenders, mostly residing in Ngaru Village, are holding the town of Yamba to ransom on the issue of crime, Member for Clarence Chris Gulaptis said yesterday. Mr Gulaptis said police had informed him that the removal of these career criminals from the system would not only scuttle the need for a 24-hour police station in Yamba, but would help stop younger residents being led astray.”
Perhaps this political nong might like to read Uses and abuses of crime statistics which was published by Don Weatherburn in November 2011 and BOCSAR's Clarence Valley LGA excel tables (2.9Mb) which cover crime records from 2006 to 2010 before talking through his rear end.
It was left up to the police to hose down the more outrageous of the crime rate claims and Yaegl elder Veronica Pearce to label the media response for what it is - "highly offensive to the indigenous community", "sensational reporting", "racist" in places and "irresponsible and damaging".
*Thanks to Clarencegirl for the stats links

1 comment:

Ursula Tunks said...

Sickens me that these hypocrites can be further marginalising the young people in Yamba based on judgements of their alleged criminal behaviour and doing so right on the tails of celebrating one of their owns criminal behaviour and calling for his forgiveness. I'm starting to understand how civil rebellion is initiated!