CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS

Mr VENNING (Grey) (10:25): A few weeks ago in this place I congratulated five students from Whyalla. Eli Coppins, Caelan Kaminski, Simon Coppins, Shannon Bayogus and Karman Randhawa are set to represent Australia, and the electorate of Grey, on the world stage at the H2 Grand Prix World Finals in Switzerland. Qualifying for the world championship was an incredible achievement in and of itself, but they have gone one better—in the early hours of this morning they became world champions.

This is a remarkable achievement, and they have done the entire nation proud. Well done. The proud residents of Port Augusta are waking up to find intruders in their bedrooms as a youth crime wave plagues their town.

Residential burglaries, commercial property theft and daylight shoplifting have left citizens and business owners feeling completely helpless as crime targets every sector of this great regional community. Police statistics show the town is in the midst of a spate of burglaries, with 34 incidents recorded in the first half of June alone. Locals are having their sense of safety shattered, with youth offenders disturbing them inside their own homes.

Children as young as six are being used to sneak through gaps into homes and open doors from the inside. This brazen scourge has been so severe that insurance companies are refusing to cover businesses that have been subject to multiple incidents, forcing many to consider leaving the town altogether. Main Street retailers are experiencing an equally aggressive wave of daytime shoplifting.

For the Port Augusta community, the most difficult part of this crime wave is what they view as a revolving door bail system for serious juvenile offenders and a lack of quality youth diversion programs in the region. Police can only do so much. The community-led K9 unit was actually helping, and I call on the Malinauskas government to fund this absolutely crucial community led service.

There needs to be a collective revisit to both social services and the youth justice system before crime totally overruns Port Augusta. Normally, at this time of the year, Whyalla sees spectacular migration of tens of thousands of giant cuttlefish, drawing tourists from around the globe. Instead, the waters are empty and local livelihoods are under threat.

Today I empathise with operators who have been forced to cancel their entire seasons. Casual workers have lost their jobs and businesses are facing crippling losses of up to $400,000. The community is suffering deeply from this profound economic and environmental blow.