Member for Araluen Robyn Lambley says it’s shameful that Alice Springs has been ranked as the 18th most dangerous city in the world but on the other hand it’s important people are informed about the seriousness of crime

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Alice Springs has been ranked the eighteenth most dangerous city
in the world in the mid twenty twenty four crime
Index by City. It was published by crowdsawce starter website
number zero, and they gave Alice Springs a crime rating
of seventy two point one in the mid twenty twenty
four list. It's equal to the Mexican city of Tijuana,

(00:21):
which currently has a rate of ninety one point seven
people per one hundred thousand. Now it's ranked only slightly worse. Well,
ranked only slightly worse was Cape Town, with a crime
rate of seventy three point eight. It's another terrible blow
for a town once famous for its bustling tourism, indigenous

(00:43):
art and wonderful cultural experiences. Now joining me on the
line is Robin Lamley, the Independent member Farra Lun. Good
morning to you, Robin.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Good morning Katie.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Robin. How are locals feeling after once again making the
headlines across the nation for all wrong reasons.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, it's very embarrassing. It's shameful that we've ended up
on this list. And there's always a conflict here, Katie,
because on one hand, people need to know how we're
being viewed nationally as well as globally in this instance,
but we're also protective. We still have the remains of

(01:24):
a tourism industry, and so trying to strike the balance
of informing people of just how serious people are seeing
us or viewing us as opposed to protecting ourselves and
trying to keep whatever good things we've got in place
so they don't deteriorate further. It's just a constant battle, Katie.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, you're spot on though, Robin. You know, like I
feel for all the local businesses, I feel for all
the locals that live there that want the place to flourish.
You want the place to be able to get back
to its former glory. And you know, when you look
at tourism, Jesus must be hard going to try and
run a tourism business at the moment when you've got
you know, it's not the you know, it's not the

(02:09):
issue of the media running the story. The issue is
that the crime is not getting better.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Correct. Tourism was our number one industry in Central Australia
and Alice Springs. I don't know exactly where it sits now,
but it just cannot be in that number one position anymore. Look,
it's a bit weird this index just come out and
put Alice Springs as eighteenth, the eighteenth most dangerous city

(02:41):
in the world. Because all the other cities are large, sprawling,
most of them are third world or developing cities in
countries that are renowned for riding and gangs and organized crime,
like Columbia and Mexico and Ecuador and Argentina and Brazil.

(03:04):
It's kind of weird that a city, and we're not
even technically a city of twenty five thousand people would
even rate a mention. So I feel a little bit
defensive in that we're being compared to all these other, massive,
sprawling cities throughout the world when we're just a speck

(03:26):
in the ocean. I'm not saying that our crime is
not bad, Katie. It is bad, but when you condense
it all down, it's still a story about a handful
of people making an enormous amount of trouble and causing
a lot of heartache for people in the town. The
scale of our crime is microscopic compared to Cape Town

(03:50):
or Salvador in Brazil or Gnio, but for us, it's
still significant and it's still causing us major problem and
for this to come out internationally that we're on this
in the top twenty. I mean, no Australian city has
ever been in the top twenty of this index. Really

(04:12):
is just so incredibly disappointing and just brings home just
how rotten things are.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, I think you've made like I think that that
is absolutely the point, and you know, everybody wants this
to get better. We've all had an absolute gutful of
the crime that's being experienced. Robin, how have things been
over the last few days? I note that it was
a horrible weekend in terms of those home invasions I

(04:43):
can see on the action for ouris page there's been
by the look of it, further damage to businesses as
well over the last twenty four hours. How things going
from your perspective.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, people are hearing about this and word gets out
very quickly around town. Now people talk about it on
a daily basis. The home invasions over the weekend. I'm
led to believe that they could be the same people.
So you're talking about I think three people allegedly causing

(05:17):
an absolute nightmare for three or four people at home.
They were home invasions. So you know, I guess that's
the point I'm trying to make. It's just such a
small group of people causing absolute mayhem and misery for

(05:37):
people in this town. And you wonder why we can't
get on top of it, because given that it does
involve so few people. I know the police are working
over time, and that's another story. But the fact that
the recruitment and retention of police isn't keeping up with

(05:58):
the Beatrician rate of people leaving the police serve in
the Northern Territory. We know that. So there's challenges on
all levels. But I don't want to minimize the absolute
pain and suffering that is being experienced by people in
our springs. It was a ramraid last night of a
local business. They tore through the front of the business,

(06:21):
causing a lot of damage and heartache there. It's ongoing,
it's consistent, but I still claim that it's involving such
a small group of people that really there shouldn't be
any reason why we can't jump on it and just
lock them away and throw the key. Wave.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
You've had enough by the sounds of it, Robin, Yeah,
it sounds like you've had a gutfull. Hey, just on
you know, like speaking of you know of jails. We
know that the construction of the new detention center, the
new youth Detention Center, it's substantially complete with detainees set
to transition to that new space from October, is what
the Northern Territory go said yesterday at an announcement. But

(07:03):
it comes at a massive cost. Now, this secure facility,
which has a forty four bed capacity, has been designed
to rehabilitate the government, says, young people and provide them
with the skills that they need to get a job
and stop offending. Two years ago, that center was flagged
to cost seventy million dollars. The final cost one hundred

(07:24):
and thirty million dollars. Robert, that, I mean, it's astronomical.
Are you sort of surprised by that price?

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Take? Oh, of courseed some surprised, Katie. I mean, the
any industry that's booming in our Springs at the moment
is the are prisons, basically juvenile detention centers in the
prison that's where all the money is going in this
town to try and lock up offenders and try and
rehabilitate people. That look, the government, this government just has

(07:56):
not delivered adequately for for Alice Springs in Central Australia.
When it comes to addressing youth crime, there's no reason
to spend that amount of money if you're taking kids
out bush and putting them in a you know, and
some sort of youth camp which is talked about every
four years leading to an election by everyone, and yet

(08:17):
we don't have them.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
You know.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
I can remember in twenty twelve when we came to government,
when I was a part of the COELP, we delivered
one that was built out at Love's Creek for five
million dollars, which is about one hundred k's east of
Alice Springs, and it was in an isolated position. There
were problems in terms of access and other issues. This

(08:43):
government packed it up, Moss called it and then sold
everything off, you know, and here we have a bill
for what did you say, one hundred and twenty million.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
One hundred and thirty million for forty four beds.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Well, that's that's just ridiculous, that's just insane. I mean,
it's not necessary, Katie, and I think, yeah, there's just
something fundamentally wrong with decisions like that. You know, kids
can be taken that bush. We know that there are
models in existence, all over the place, and we spend

(09:19):
our kids down a youth camp and the Flinders Rangers,
we've been doing that for years. I'm sure they didn't
spend anywhere near that amount of money. They set up
the facility they've got down there, and from all accounts
it works well. But I don't know. I just think
they're scrambling around the yeah, scrambling around to find solutions.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
It is so much money. Honestly, it's so much money.
And I get it, like I get that jarls are
expensive to build. I get that costs are going to blowout,
and that they'd started building it, and you know, COVID
hit and all sorts of things. But it is just
an enormous amount of money. And you know, it's raised
with me very often on this show that we spend
so much money on youths that are doing the wrong thing.

(10:04):
And I know that the parents of a lot of
good kids are sort of starting to question why such
an enormous amount of money is spent on this space,
and if we could spend it in a better way,
and like you've pointed out as well, you know, if
there's a way to actually spend it where you're able
to get kids in programs and doing the right thing
before they even have to go to a one hundred

(10:24):
and thirty million dollar facility.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Prevention is always better than cure. I think that if
this government had have listened to the likes of me
and many other people screening at them since twenty seventeen,
when we saw a significant that the beginning of the
significant escalation in crime in our springs, we wouldn't be
where we are now. We were actively ignored and neglected

(10:50):
by this government for many, many years, and now they're
scrambling around trying to fix it by throwing huge sums
of money at facilities that probably aren't really even needed.
I mean, there's lots of former youth camps that could
be resurrected in Central Australia. There's at least two or
three that I can think of that it could be

(11:12):
available with a bit of with a lot less funding
than what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
The well, Robin Lambley, I always appreciate your time. Thank
you very much for having a chat with us this morning.
My pleasure, Katie all a bit, thank you, thanks so much.