The Liberals’ Jeremy Hanson is huffing and puffing at the quiet death of the specialist preventative alcohol crime taskforce.
Basically in Civic of a Saturday night all crime has an alchohol component.
Should something come up that isn’t alcohol related do we want the nearest police standing around saying “sorry mate, I only do the booze stuff”?
A sworn general duties police officer is an astonishingly powerful and expensive beastie and over-specialisation is a bit of a waste.
But that doesn’t stop Jeremy wanting to get down into micro managing the city beats:
“We’re calling on the Government to reinstate the alcohol crime taskforce, retain numbers in the City beat, stop robbing Peter to pay Paul and properly fund our police force,” Mr Hanson concluded.
The issue he raises about bar owners being levied to pay for police services that are not being delivered, however, is a rather good one.
I’d rather see police on the beat than talking CCTV.