 Again, my thanks for your time. Obviously the police minister needs no introduction. This morning we have released the annual police statistical review, which is the crime and related figures for the last statistical year, which is the same as the financial year, in other words 2010, 2011. Later today in Parliament the minister will be tabling the companion document, that's the police annual report for the same period, but for now this is in respect of the statistical review. I'll hand over to the minister, but we appreciate you only just got the document and I'm happy to come back early tomorrow morning or next week and we're also happy to follow up with any questions or queries you may have. Minister, thank you for your time today. Thanks Commissioner and thanks everyone for coming. As Commissioner has indicated the statistical review is now tabled and is available for public scrutiny. The annual report, I'm required to table that in the parliament so that will be made available later on today. So once again for the 10th consecutive year we've seen a reduction in the overall crime rates in Queensland of around 3%, and in terms of an 11 year trend, which is from 2000 and 2001 to the current year, that results in a 30% reduction in the overall rate of crime. And just to explain, the overall rate includes all categories of crime in together and those figures show a real reduction. In terms of the particular major categories, offences against the person, which is predominantly made up with assaults, down 6% year on year, and since 2000 and 2001 a 25% reduction in the rate. Property offences are up this year by 4%, however since 2000 and 2001 an overall reduction in the rate of property crime of 46%. As with previous years, when you analyse the statistics, statistics through the published document, you will see volatility both in region to region, district to district and category of crime. There's nothing unusual in that and that's why I think it's important that whereas we do look at the individual rates of increases and decreases year on year, it is the overall trends over time which are important and as I've indicated very clearly and you can see those through the graphs which are behind you in all of the significant categories, offences against the person and property crime, over that 11 year period from 2000 and 2001 there has been a significant reduction in the rate of crime. When you look at the trends over years even before that, in these major categories, offences against the person, predominantly assaults and property offences basically peaked around 2000 and 2001 and since that period of time we've seen that steady decline which I've indicated. And I just again want to pay tribute to the professionalism and dedication of the Queensland Police Service Officers for achieving those results. This is a combination of a number of factors, coincidentally around that time the Commissioner on his appointment introduced operational performance reviews which focuses at the regional and district level and right down to the divisional level it focuses officers' attention on particular crime trends in their area of responsibility and those operational performance reviews in my view have been a significant contributor to reducing the crime rate. Similarly over that period and indeed before since the government was elected we've seen a significant increase in the number of police resources. If you go back to 1998 the police to population ratio was around one officer for every 507 residents of Queensland that's now been significantly reduced down to one officer to every 436. So over that period of time we've seen an increase in the number of police officers on the beat and reduction in crime rates. The other issue which is important is clearance rates. Clearance rates have in fact reduced a little this year but when you again look over time clearance rates for the major categories of crime have increased. For example, offences against the person again predominantly assault rates is the major component of that. 2000-2163% cleared 2010-11 up to 73%. Property offences around 2000-2001. A clearance rate of 23%. This financial year 30%. Even though it has decreased slightly over the last year. So again, the clear indicators in my view crime rates have been coming down. Clearance rates have been going up over that period of time. I just might mention a couple of areas of interest. The southeast region which includes the gull coast of course we've had a significant public interest in some of the horrific crimes particularly the loss of Damien Leading and other significant offences early this year. On the gull coast all in the southeast region we have seen an increase in some categories of offences, break and end as for example. But by the same take and as I've indicated you will see volatility right across regions districts and categories of crime. You did see decreases in the overall rate of assaults of around 9%. Arm robberies or the rate of arm robberies in the southeast region basically remain the same as the year before. And overall the rate of arm robberies on the gull coast in the 11 years from 2000-2001 to the present declined by 26%. The other area of interest which created some interest last year was that in the issue of youth crime particularly young offenders in the 15 to 19 year old male group which has for considerable period of time made up the largest proportion of offenders. Year on year for this year for offences against the person again these are offences predominantly made up of assaults. There's been an 11% reduction in the number of offenders in that age group category. And for unlawful entry again predominantly break and enders there's been an 8.7% reduction in the number of offenders and that's reflected in some other categories as well. So the key points here in my view are continued trend of reducing crime rates in Queensland. Important to recognise that there will be volatility increases and decreases year on year between districts, regions and between crime categories but the clear trends since 2000-2001 has been a steady and significant decline in the rates of crime in Queensland and in basically all of those significant categories so the trends are positive. I might hand over to the commissioner as the commissioner indicated earlier we understand that you've only just received these documents and obviously there will be opportunities to take further questions over the next couple of days. Thanks. Thanks very much minister and can I acknowledge the additional police that we've had over the last 10 years particularly because certainly that's been a major factor in achieving the results that have been attained in the last 10 years. I won't come back to that later but as to other reasons but just to summarise again the results for this last statistical year which of course is the same as the financial year we're pleased with the further decrease in the rate of offences against the person as the minister indicated that's everything to do with people's safety starting with the most serious offence of murder and then going down to minor assault and everything in between includes armed robbery offences as well so it's good to see that come down yet again. We're disappointed in the increase in terms of property crime it's a 4% increase in the main that's petty theft stealing from vehicles that's where the bulk of that increase has come from breaking and entering offences have tended to come down slightly which is a good thing but any increase is disappointing so we'll work hard there's a bit of a trend already this year for that increase to continue so we'll work hard to try and stabilise that or if we can bring that down further I wish as your commissioner that I could say to you every year we will reduce crime I'd like to be able to say that to you but you and I both know that that's not viable because what that would mean as much as it would be a utopian objective is that one day there would be no crime because of every year we reduce crime we'd get to a point at some stage in the future where crime would cease to exist so please don't think that we're taking a foot off the accelerator or not making the effort we are and the 11% increase in the rate of other offences and that other offences are those offences that are exclusively generated by the police no one actually makes a complaint these are things like public order offences people behaving badly in licence premises those sorts of things that are detected by the police and they take action I think there's probably two reasons for that reduction and it's a pretty consistent reduction across the state every region had a reduction in this area I think the primary reason has probably been that for a very large part of that last year the police service with many other agencies these of course was totally focused on the effects of the floods and cyclones and the terrible events in Tuomba and the Lockhear Valley that that really was a massive effort for everyone it's possible as well that that reduction reflects improved behaviour by some people in terms of alcohol related behaviour I certainly think the drink safe precinct trials in Townsville, the valley and surfers paradise have been really good and have seen some better outcomes and results so I can't tell you definitively but I definitely the fact that we were involved in the floods and cyclones has contributed because we had less police out there and about because they were so focused on those things and hopefully it's also an indicator of better public behaviour this is quite a significant document and I'm grateful to the people who put it together we've added a few bits to it this year there's a section in there on missing persons which you may find of interest and what that shows is the vast majority of missing persons are located each year which is a good thing and there's some additional material on traffic there's also some useful graphs because we can talk about numbers and figures and well I find it interesting always because it's our bread and butter but what is interesting is the graphs though and there's a whole series of graphs starting from page 18 over the 12 month period that show but more interesting I think and relevant is the series of graphs starting on page 36 that go onwards and show a trend over 30 years and starting with the first one which is homicide and if we asked many people and said are you at greater or more risk sorry greater or lesser risk today of being the victim of murder or homicide than you would have been 30 years ago most people would probably say more risk but the reality is when we look at that we just see how that's come down over time in the last 30 years so the reality is that for the average Queensland citizen today they're at less risk of being the victim of a murder than they would have been 30 years ago another interesting one is robbery and you can see as the minister said where a lot of crime peaked around about the year at 99-2000 and robbery offenses have come down since then regrettably that statewide trend as the minister indicated has not been reflected in the Gold Coast or for that matter the southeast region which takes in the Gold Coast District Coomer District and New District only established in 2009 and Logan District and what's tended to happen there is that whilst robbery offenses have not gone up in the 10-year period neither have they come down to the extent that obviously we would have liked that's matched the rest of the state and if I could give you some examples of that for armed robbery offenses in the Gold Coast District so in 2001-2002 there were 151 armed robbery offenses in the Gold Coast District that went down to as low as 84 a couple of years later from 151 down to 84 but then it bounced back up again and three years ago it was 146 so 151 on the Gold Coast District ten years ago three years ago 146 last year 105 and then the year just concluded that we're talking about now 119 so regrettably what hasn't happened there is we haven't seen the same statewide trend so that's a goal for us to try and bring those offenses in the Gold Coast down but they certainly have not exploded have not gone up the final comment I wanted to make before we open it to questions is that to express my appreciation obviously to the people in the Queensland Police Service the results they have in the last ten years but also to some other areas as well and I acknowledge the support of the government with the increased police numbers our approach has been a three part approach it's been reactive policing so in other words if a crime happens to respond to it to try and solve it and catch the offenders what we've always tried to do is reduce crime and increase clear up rates that's the overall goal the second response has been to try and prevent things from happening that's far better to prevent crime than solve it and to have it happen and the third is to work with other agencies in terms of what we call causal factor problem solving in other words what's the underlying causal factors to crime in the different communities throughout Queensland and how can we deal with those and with that I would just want to acknowledge while you're here the support of the media we can only be effective if the public kept informed of what's going on I think it's a really important balance to do that without causing people unnecessary alarm but to keep them well informed and I think the partnership we have in Queensland between the police the community and the media has actually been a pretty good partnership in the last 10 years so I thank you for your contribution in that space as well and with that I'm happy to take any questions you have about this or for that matter or any other issue, thank you I've already said what's pushed crime up in the South East region what's the South East region, property crimes up but overall what we call crimes against the person that's all of those things that relate to safety that's down and that's been consistently down which is a great result South Eastern region it seems like armed river is largely the same but was there a variation within the financial year where there were more armed river is in the start of this yes and that'll happen that's a good question that'll happen because as you'll see from those charts in there over a whole year if there's 120 armed robbery offences somewhere in any of our 31 districts over 12 months there won't be 10 every month it'll be up and down up and down broadly speaking we tend to get more crime in the hotter months than we do in winter I guess that just makes obvious sense doesn't it people out and about you know it's not cold and they're not home and it's not cold wet and raining but we did have a dreadful spike in increase in armed robbery offences in the South East region the Gold Coast in that period of around about May this year for a couple of months and of course that ultimately was the same timeframe in terms of the tragedy of the death of Damien leading detective senior constable Damien leading so that was the spike in that period around about April May June no it hasn't that's stabilised the basics on the weapons used in armed robbery are more guns being used or knives being used on the Gold Coast in particular I can come back to you Sue with the precise detail of that but Ballpark figures in that space that around about 15 to 20% of weapons used in armed robberies are firearms and it's slightly higher for the South East region than the rest of the state so if the rest of the state averages out at around about 15 to 18% say for firearms the Gold Coast is around 20% but it's not a massive difference but slightly higher for weapons in the Gold Coast and the other weapons obviously are knives and machetes and things like that in some cases bottles and things in some cases syringes too was there a spike in property related crime around the January floods look I don't think so that seems to have evened out and in fact one of the things we were heartened by was the actual lack of opportunistic crime and looting that did occur in that period I mean there was some but really it was quite minimal so no we don't think so so there's quite that occurred in total offences in January do you not attribute any of that to the impact of the floods I'm sorry I didn't think we said there was a spike in January it could have been I actually don't have the precise answer that what we don't believe happened was that there was excessive looting there was some looting but we don't believe it was excessive and of course generally speaking every year there will be an increase in crime around about the summer months December January that's not unusual and I'm not laying the blame here but sometimes that's because there are children who aren't at school and they aren't occupied but as the minister indicated juvenile crime is not increasing across the board but it is a trend for many many years and we'll probably continue into the future that we get more crime and the warmer months than we do in the middle of winter you know I think perhaps people may have become more desperate when they were confronted by such difficult circumstances and may have turned to crime again that's a really good question and it comes down to the economic situation there are different views about that there is a view that unemployment and loss of income will turn people to crime there are other views as well that the claim in that regard is overstated it's a hard one for me as your police commissioner to be able to give you a definitive answer on I think personally for what it's worth I think that unemployment and poverty yes it does lead to crime but there are other factors as well and certainly not the sole reason the figures show that you need to change your structure of policing maybe more police in certain areas or prevalent crime again thanks for that question what we try to do in Queensland we have a unique situation in Queensland we're one of the largest police departments in the English speaking western world if we were in America for example where there are 17 to 18 thousand police departments we'd be in the top five in terms of the size of the department but the uniqueness we have is we're so decentralized so we're not a small state we're a geographically large state and we have cities like Cairns that are further from Brisbane than Melbourne so we have to provide a policing service to the whole of the state and a comprehensive policing service so at Cairns for example we have to have a forensic unit we even have a cert unit we have to have all of the things that you'd have in Melbourne for Victoria based in just one place so what we have done in relation to that is have two fairly large commands here in Brisbane state crime operations command and operation support command where we can send so in state crime operations command if they get a murder in Cairns or they get three or four murders in the homicide squad to stay there and help them out and assist and we found that that works really well for example in operation support command we have 50 officers in the public safety response team they can go anywhere in Queensland at short notice to help out they also have a program schedule of activity so I think the best model in Queensland is to have sufficient police everywhere backed up here in Brisbane by a unit that can go and support them if I can give you an example of that in Skirleys I think we had 377 extra police from outside the south east region that went to help them in the Skirleys and about 150 from outside the region that went to help them as they managed for the V8 supercar race that's the way we think is the only way to operate in Queensland there seems to be a problem with rates last year it was down reported rates were down 8% this year they appear to be slightly up you know why that would be and it can fluctuate significantly there can be a whole range of reasons there it's a terrible offence the definition of rape in some years ago was broad so it's a much broader definition so more acts that previously would have been a sexual assault are now a rape offence and there is no good news with this but it's really important to point out that the vast majority of offences in this category occur between people who are known to each other so whilst it does happen it's not the norm that people are walking through a park and they're abducted and dragged into the bushes and raped by someone completely unknown I'm not saying that canton doesn't happen but fortunately in our society that sort of thing is rare so in the vast majority of these offences of a sexual nature including rape sadly because often it's an abusive trust a victim and offender are known to each other there's nothing wrong with that showing off offences against children offences against children yeah that's fairly stable and again of course obviously with that again the vast majority of those situations are a breach of trust by people who are known to the child just looking here with the kidnapping and abduction I doubt that might actually relate to the children as well almost doubly isn't that true and all in that category do we know is that mainly children or did we know any contributing factor there you're right generally it is and generally it relates to not always but generally it relates to custodial type issues and that sort of thing and the figures I don't think I think again those figures fortunately and numerically and not massive but obviously they're of concern and of course these things generally run where people are emotionally disturbed and at very high levels and they're worst of course we can have the tragedies that we've seen of murder suicide in those situations so obviously we take all of those very seriously and right at the outset we take it very seriously as well as trying to find those people as quickly as possible particularly where a child may have been abducted you know from a school or something like that there seems to be a lot of attempt deductions around schools as well and it's almost every second week we have an alert app is that something that you're seeing a plan on to increase? I'd have to come back to you precisely on that certainly that's a great concern I would think for every parent it's their worst nightmare the thought that their child might be abducted something we take absolutely seriously to you that we take every one of those complaints as genuine and absolutely seriously and we thoroughly and exhaustively investigate every one of them and so we should and it is our area well one of our areas of absolute greatest concern and we are very grateful as well to the support of the public in terms and can I ask that you convey this message I see anyone acting suspiciously particularly before or after school get their number and let us know or call crime stoppers and let us know about that you know I don't think it's an invasion of anyone's privacy and it's not being snoopy we would really like to know about that because sometimes just that one piece of information can be incredibly helpful in that situation in relation to Cairns has been two murders within just a few days and I believe that waiting time to routine jobs were up to eight hours on the weekend do you believe that resources are stretched there I wasn't aware of that claim and certainly and as we all know any offence is only established once it's ultimately proven in the courts and anyone charged is the alleged offender and that it has to be proven certainly again if you look at the murder rate as I indicated in the last 30 years it's actually come down which has been a good thing and might I say I think one of the reasons for that is our greater awareness across the board as a community about domestic violence and the potential risks associated with domestic violence in my view there's a good number of police in Cairns an adequate level of staffing there I think if you go back over the last 10 years you'd find that we've increased the number of police in that area every year and I'm not saying that they probably couldn't use more police I'm sure they could and probably next year when we get our increased numbers there'll be more police again in Cairns but I think they provide a good level of service to the community in Cairns with the officers they have Are rates in that region are stable or are decreasing? There's been a slight increase in Cairns in property crime which is a consistent trend across the state but it's not a huge increase at this point in time Why haven't you just come offences against the person? And one of the things with that is when we talk about Cairns we talk about Cairns as in the Cairns district which stretches from just south of Cairns at Gordonvale right through to the Torres Strait and all of the Cape so we're talking about a very large area there as well I'm sorry On that area the offences against the person they're decreasing to a much higher than the state average in the final of the region. Is that due to the Cape is that still that my point sadly and again for my side that's a really good point we've got 8 regions and one has to have the highest rate of offending in terms of offences against the person one has to have the lowest and every year traditionally the region with the highest rate of offences against the person that's the number of offences per 100,000 population so it's not the actual number it's the number per 100,000 that's the rate is the far northern region tragically and sadly that is in part due to the issues associated across the Cape in many cases in the smaller communities in the Cape and that's something we're mindful of and we're working with those communities trying to address that I can't speak for the government I'm not a politician but the alcohol management plans have been introduced and I think they've been a good thing and for our part where we've increased numbers in the smaller communities and in some cases we've managed to put into place police, citizenship, clubs which we think have been a good thing as well I'm sorry Absolutely, I'm a supporter of the AMP I recognise the difficulty with that and the angst from some people in the communities but I am a supporter and that's my own view that they have helped reduce violence One of the more concerning stats is an increase of around 20% in computer fraud but is that surprising? No, not at all and I think that's a trend and I think it's reflective of the society and world in which we live in today and our people in the fraud squad often plead there are many aspects to computer fraud but one sadly is the one where people are taken advantage of and that tends to move across three areas or be across three areas. The first is those people who contact you and say that your great uncle's died and you've inherited a fortune and the second is that you've won some lottery prize and sadly the third which is even more cruel is romance fraud where someone will say to be a retired aircraft pilot who's a bit lonely and looking for some company and that leads to well I'd love to come and visit you in Australia but could you send me the airfares because I'm on a little bit of financial difficulty and people who are taken in by that so again we really depend on the media's help in constantly getting those messages out if it sounds too good to be true it is and don't be sucked in by it. I think can I just add to internet fraud in particular it's probably one of the most unreported crimes around and we really do encourage members of the community however small an offence it might appear to be to them to report to their local police station because I think both nationally internationally many people simply don't report attempts at internet based fraud so the more people that report these figures will continue to rise year on year but we need to get a better picture so we can start to target those offenders and as you'd be aware Queensland Police Service through Superintendent Brian Hay just getting his rank correct Superintendent Brian Hay recognised internationally for his work but it is something we really do need the community to report because there is an underreporting of that crime. Can you tell us a little bit more about the offences committed against police officers? That's obviously concerning and disturbing. There's been an increase in the Gold Coast District in terms of the level of assaults on police I need to drill down and look more closely at that please don't think this is in any sense spin or gloss or trying to put a positive light on that but it could be that part of that has been the increased level of activity because the more police you have and the more active the more there will be arresting drunks and people acting offensively and the more likelihood of being assaulted but there's been an increase in the Gold Coast District but there is some good news in that space and that is that the rate which is the important figure for this across the state has actually come down a little bit and the rate at the moment I think is about 220-221 so for every thousand police in Queensland each year in the last year about 220 will be assaulted each year that varies across the state the worst region is the northern region which takes in Townsville and Mount Isa where the rate is up around 390 so 390 of every thousand police in that region get assaulted each year at the moment the best region is Metro South that's the south side of Brisbane where the rate is about 190 and it averages out at about 220 that's still nearly a quarter of the workforce and it's still too high and we still need to do more about that are the rates proportional between the increase in offensives community as police officers at the Gold Coast to the amount of officers that are being put on the rates? Yeah, entirely pretty much, yeah, you're right and that's why the rate is so important there's about 1500 police in the south-east region where in other regions there's about 600 police so you can't measure this on the basis of saying you know, in one region so many police get assaulted it depends on the number of police obviously so the rate is the important figure and the rate is the number of assaults on police per thousand police officers and as I mentioned currently averaging out about 220 which is a reduction on last year so it's come down a bit which is a good trend and we hope we can continue that but again, that's nearly a quarter of the workforce and you know, that is far too many if a quarter of the teachers in Queensland are solid each year, they'd probably be pretty upset. No, I know policing is a difficult and dangerous job but I still think that's too many and we need to keep working and trying to reduce that. Do you think you have any bearing on the police chopper trial? I think too early you know, that's only been going for a couple of weeks yeah No, I've never got into that space but no matter for the government what I've always said is that I believe and the other thing is that I've got enough to do with running the police department without getting into telling judges and magistrates how they should operate and obviously I'm grateful if they try not to try and tell me how to run the police department I suppose too but it's a matter for the government because it relates to government policy and it's really a question for the minister all I would ask of assaults on police that these sentences also have a deterrent effect where that's appropriate and that's taken into consideration and I'm happy to respond to that question. The government is opposed to mandatory sentencing I've looked at this issue there have been calls for mandatory penalties or sentencings for assaults on police and indeed a whole range of other assault type offences the evidence in my view is that it doesn't work it doesn't send a deterrent there may be some short term impact but over time the evidence both nationally and internationally that I've looked at shows that whether it be assaults or any other opportunistic crime the fact that you're going to expect people to think there's going to be mandatory sentencing will deter them from actually committing that crime the evidence doesn't stack up we strongly believe that it's in the view of the court to make those decisions some years ago we increased the penalties for assaults on police and indeed other public officials with the ambulance officers, fire and rescue officers and others to enable that to be a maximum penalty of eight years whereas previously many of those assaults would have been considered three year offences the court of appeal through Chief Justice Paul de Jersey has made perfectly clear in judgments that this is strong guidance to the courts that he expects that a person who spits on or throws bodily fluids or blood etc at a police officer can expect to get a jail sentence and when you look at the actual sentences which are being imposed yes you will find somewhere custodial sentences have not been imposed but there are many many others where it is so from the government's point of view we do not support mandatory sentencing for these types of offences of course any assault on a police officer or an ambulance officer or a rescue officer is absolutely unacceptable but the courts have got the power that they need to meet out an appropriate penalty Do you think the penalty for assaults on police should be impressed? I think the penalties are adequate I think each case needs to be treated on its own individual circumstances but obviously it is an important issue for me and we are appropriate I believe it should be a deterrent but that is a matter for the presiding judge or magistrate to respect the circumstances of each particular case The other point I would just make is that the rate of assault on the police of course is of concern I mean 220 officers per thousand is the average rate is just appalling but the positive thing and we can produce these figures the trends of assaults on police have been decreasing over recent years last year it was 241 per thousand it has dropped into 225 years ago it was much much higher so whereas any level of assault is absolutely unacceptable the trends thankfully are trending downwards Can you say with confidence that the job cuts you are having to go through at the moment to keep your budget in line for the government and the crime rates this time next year when we are sitting here Well I would hope it wouldn't obviously with respect to such broad ranging questions you couldn't give a definitive answer what I have said and am happy to repeat is that what we have done in fact we had a meeting between 7 and 8 this morning just to further progress how we are going to manage that and what we have done is try and minimise absolutely the impact on operational police but we can't sort of guarantee that so we have looked across the state at all of our areas and for our 8 regions and those 2 support commands here at headquarters that I talked about before the reduction in civilian staff member numbers through the Voluntary Separation Program and if need be natural attrition will be around about 3 to 4% for those operational areas in headquarters as Quetting in headquarters for all the areas except for those 2 operationally based type support commands state comm operations command operation support command to cut will be about 10 to 12% so we are trying to take the reductions out of the administrative type larger support areas like HR ICT administration those areas we will endeavour at all costs to minimise the impact on operational police there is no reduction in police numbers and in fact the government says to me that police numbers will continue to increase but in some areas obviously if an administration support person is takes a Voluntary Separation Program then it might be that some of the police there have to do some of the work that might have been done by the administration so I can't give you an unequivocal guarantee that that won't happen in some cases what I am saying is that we are trying to minimise that the other important point is we are not going to lose any civilian staff members in one on one roles in terms of replacing a police officer so for example we have a number of people who answer the radio and working police radio communication rounds throughout the state whereas once that was all police now it's a mix of police and civilians in the main civilians they do a great job there won't be any reductions there we have a number of watch house officers now who are civilians in a police uniform who work and assist police in watch houses there will be no reduction there either so in terms of what we call the one on one where a person comes in and frees up a police officer to go out on the street no reduction there it won't take officers off the street no what I thought I just said was unequivocally that we are not reducing police and we are not taking we are not replacing civilian staff members who do a one on one role in other words that their job would have to be done and would have to be done by a police officer we are sustaining these losses through people who generally work in administrative support roles if I didn't make myself clear I'm sorry what I'm saying is that though in a station or a district if you take out someone who is in an administration support role it may be that some of that work you know might have to be done by a police officer where the police officer had someone else doing it but we are trying to minimise that okay certainly we are absolutely you know trying to minimise totally any operational impact for the public I'm sorry which squad was that well they haven't got an admin officer yet they've got I don't think they've got 18 people 18 detectives we increased that to 20 we put two intel officers there I actually don't think we've actually assigned anyone to be an admin officer but conceptually yes that's possible that if you had a group of 20 detectives then they had two or three people in admin support and it was reduced by one and clearly you know that could happen but we're trying to minimise that across the state is there something in there that's personally look I don't think there is one thing that absolutely jumps out and I obviously just want us to keep focused as an organisation on our overall goal and for the 31 districts throughout the state obviously as part of our processes that's the operational performance of your process that the Minister was talking about for each of those they will and we will with them look at their results and we give you an undertaking that we just think that what we should do is focus on what the public want and we think that that is their safety number one and there are many dimensions to that and that includes the road toll actually the reality is the place where we're most likely to get hurt is on the road so everything to do with their safety is number one we think that the second most important thing to them is their property in terms of their homes, their businesses not being broken into and their cars not being stolen and then we think thirdly the most important thing to them is that they can be at a public event or public space and be safe so whether that's a state of origin football match, whatever it is whether it's going to the mall in the city here to go shopping in a movie and have lunch that they're safe in all of those things as well so they're our priorities and we'll remain focused on them Is that an area that is disappointing and I know it's an issue that's very hard to tackle do we need more resources do we need more education how do you tackle that that's largely a human problem that's a really difficult one in this sense because the rates I think of breaches of domestic violence are up by 4% that could be a good thing that's part of the difficulty with this I think that's why it's important to have these discussions about figures because sometimes the reality goes beyond what you see up front it could be a good thing it might mean that more women are empowered and generally it is women to report breaches of domestic violence because they have faith in the system and if something will be done about it it will be some effect of it but overall clearly there needs more work to be done we need more education we need more awareness most perpetrators of domestic violence are men not always but by far most are and in some cases that's men who've grown up as a child in a family where there's been domestic violence and they're repeating the behaviour of their father so education campaigns awareness campaigns for these men that they can hopefully change their behaviour their outlook and their attitude to women they're really important and a huge amount is being done in that space in the last 10 years or so what we've done in the police department is try and ensure and I believe we have achieved this that police see domestic violence as really important police work that it is something that's part of when traffic investigating serious crime is put in part of police work and for what it's worth it's my humble view that that reduction in homicide over the last 30 years is no accident and that the reason is because of our increased awareness of domestic violence because the reality is that most not all of course there's ganglion killings and all sorts of things but most murders occur out of domestic violence situations so if we can do more and one of the classic warning signs is a violent domestic where the male grabs the female the woman around the throat that's a real early warning indicator of potential future homicide so if we can do more in that space of awareness treatment education all of those things you know we can improve the situation we're in now one of the biggest things I think though is empowering women in difficult circumstances to do something about it and that can be because of their family circumstances or if they live in a small country town or somewhere they'd be embarrassed so there's a whole lot of extra work that can be done I also notice the victims for offenses against a person most likely to be between 15 and 19 women in that age bracket what's that attributed to? I think that's pretty traditional regrettably it's a useful document in terms of looking at all this sort of stuff in fact as self-serving as it sounds it's probably the best of any police department in Australia but that has for a long time been that people at the greatest risk are in that bracket and I don't think that's changed over time because they're going out is that more assault related or what? I think it's across the board well certainly they're out and about and that's part of it and the girls particularly in that age group take risks, higher risks their judgement is not matured so yeah there's a range of factors in me but it is pretty traditional that that group is your greatest at risk group and that tends, the next group probably greatest at risk is men up to about the age of 25 and I guess both of them are probably virtually females as well because females are even higher than males in that category so again maybe drinking and start drinking in that age that sort of thing is that kind of there's a range of situations there and clearly sadly some of those girls are victims of sexual abuse in family situations as well by people who are known to them for any situation alcohol for any of us it doesn't matter what age you are you know the sensible, safe consumption of alcohol practices in that space are really really important so that's the broad message to everyone in the community if you're going to have a drink pre-plan how you're going to get home have someone in your group perhaps they're not going to have a drink those sorts of things their message is we really push at skirlys and we think that that's been helpful and I know skirlys this isn't over yet for a few more days but we think that arguably this skirlys is one of the best ever if not the best ever and one of the things that happen in that space that we think has helped is going around to the skirlys before skirlys and trying to get these messages across about look after you mate be sensible, have a plan those sorts of messages well no not at the moment can you be more specific yes there is an internal disciplinary process with senior constable wheeler that is ongoing and is not finalised as you any other questions well thank you again and can I again make the offer in terms of any follow up questions or any future press conferences happy to engage in those thanks very much for your time today