 Good morning ladies and gentlemen, Superintendent Paul Zebaath, Gold Coast District Police. Day six of the Gold Coast school year event has been completed and what we've seen overnight is of significance is that for a Wednesday night this has been the quietest night on a Wednesday night in the last five years. So much so that arrests as far as they're an indicator have dropped by 40% on the five year high. That's for the Wednesday night overall the arrests for the entire event are down 44% to the week to this point. We did have an unfortunate incident overnight, of course there was a scuffle following a disturbance in the hub area. Police assisted security to move on a couple of people and a arrest has ensued. That's developed into a number of other young people becoming involved and as a result seven people were arrested six miles and one female. Six of those were registered as schoolies and had wristbands. The main perpetrator of that was charged with just a street offence of public nuisance and obstruct police. Other than that disturbance the night was actually fairly steady and with our partners and volunteers on the beat myself last night for my observations intoxication and disorder were as indicated by the arrest figures well down on previous years. Are you say that it was the quietest in five years would you attribute that to the poor weather? Well until the weather didn't really change until later in the evening in the early hours of the event it was all fine weather. In actual fact it was quite warm last night quite muggy and in our experience in the past the warm with the conditions often resulted more intoxication but we're pleased to see intoxications were still at a acceptable level. The evening itself other than that one incident was a fairly routine night. I had the good fortune of being on the 19th floor with the schoolies command with that apartment community's colleagues when that disturbance didn't eventuate and what was really pleasing to see that the first responders one of them was one of our senior commanders and inspector of police from the north coast and he's an active senior sergeant from Southport who were doing an inspection of the hub area when they came across this disturbance were able to intervene early. From the 19th floor what was really good to see as I spoke to the police command section at the same time was the rapid response of the high visibility policing the police coming through the crowd and high visibility vests were easy to see our command were able to track out people using their GPS trackers and get the closest units to attend to that area so the rapid response nearly intervention probably made sure that that incident didn't escalate. Superintendent, have you seen seven arrests in that role inside the hub and six of schoolers that has one non-schooling inside the hub? There were six or seven arrests at that disturbance the arrests of course happened outside of the hub area so we're currently unable to attribute whether or not all those persons were inside at the time however the one perpetrator who was a schoolie was arrested as he was leaving the hub after a disturbance. Was that the reason why the hub was closed down early or were there stages? No no look the hub the hub stage and if you like and the closing there's the two stages there it's quite common that depending on numbers that we will close with our partners of course make a joint decision to close one of the stages down a little bit earlier than the other but we've got a fairly good routine midnight's to close off and that's the time we aim for so that all the young people get used to that routine and basically it's working well because it will start to head back to their apartments at the same time if they don't. Is something to rest a down but there's quite a tension in the air last night and if not for the large police presence there may have been many more scuffles or many near-misses do you think there's a particular reason for that tension in the air and the aggressive feeling that people may have? Going from my observations on the beat in my experience 11 school years I've done now and the arrest figures the number of disturbances we had are reflective of what I see is a relatively good night. We're no strangers to disturbances in surface powder ice from time to time we've got 106 license venues within about five or six blocks there and drink safe precinct is working well but we do see disturbances where there are a group of people and some of them are unfortunately affected by alcohol. In this occasion I would say that intoxicational levels are still what they are in previous years and certainly in my observations the event itself or the operations that are safe to response to the event aren't seeing any particular spikes in intoxicational disorder. You said the schoolies are going back to their hotel rooms does that mean you know earlier than I guess I don't know whether previously but does that mean that they're making their own fun in their hotel rooms drinking more and you know? Look I can't really comment on what's occurring inside the apartments but what I do see is the policing response and the safety response particularly in the public places and from that perspective the safety response is going very well and what was pleasing to see last night with the volunteers and security and our other partners in ambulance and other areas yes yes working hand in hand to keep the young people safe. What we do do is we look at bowel conditions to stop people coming back into surface paradise where it's appropriate for example in the unfortunate serious assault on our police officer from night five the 24 year old woman from surface paradise appeared in court yesterday and she's got a bowel condition of not to return to the drink safe precinct which is basically the surface paradise CBD prior to a court appearance on the 12th of January so we do use bowel conditions as a tool to keep people out of surface paradise young people should be aware that if they do get a bowel condition where they want to return to surface paradise and of course means they can't return to their accommodation which means they're going to have to go home we do use that tool on a relatively frequent basis but it depends on the circumstances but I can guarantee you that anyone that's arrested for an offensive violence such as the assault on that police officer of the previous night will find themselves getting about additional to return to surface paradise and will find themselves police putting an application for a banning order which might mean that they're actually banned from returning to surface paradise between for example six to twelve months that would apply to any person who's potentially committed some offensive violence and a serious assault against police does of course constitute that. So what about like some certain groups of school leads that continually are causing the problems not to happen? From time to time there will be some people that will draw attention to themselves and the other thing we use if we do see people that are continuing to cause the service we use move on directions under the Police Powers for Responsibilities Act and it's simply that we can give an official direction for people to leave a particular place for a period of time. That's another tool we do use and where we do find people that are continually annoying others and becoming a public nuisance we use the move on directions in addition to arrest powers. So move on directions are a requirement people must comply with those directions if they don't they can be arrested. If they do commit any offensive violence we will be putting bar conditions against them not to return to surface. If they commit an offensive violence we will apply for a banning order which might mean six to twelve months banning from surface paradise. Just back on that point I have to help Superintendent. That brawl was around eleven thirty and that was the end of dancing on that stage so is it fair to say that that incident led to the early closure of that facade of the hub? Not at all that disturbance if you like really didn't contribute to that it probably refocused our resources for a short while but there was a rapid response there and it was wrapped up in a short space of time and I say looking for the 19th floor overseeing the arrest there I don't know in a very professional manner particularly by senior officers which was good to see. How did that fight start you know what you know what sort of ended on it? I can't give you too much more information on that. It is before the courts as well. Could you could you allege that it was alcohol for you? I couldn't do that I'm sorry. I know you go to Queensland to get through but obviously New South Wales school is coming up. Will there be the same sort of police supervision for them planning the same sort of response? Our policing response is similar in some respects to what we've had this week for week one with the Queensland schoolies but interestingly we've got a lot of New South Wales kids here this week as well. Our partners from communities could probably expand on that a little bit on the actual breakdown but the operation does change a little bit from Friday night. The tide does start to turn and we start to get Queenslanders moving out we start to get New South Wales kids moving in and there's a changing of the guard if you like and Saturday night is predominantly New South Wales and Victorian patrons. The policing operation for us of course does change a little bit because the last night of operation of the hub is Friday night so the last of our Queensland young people generally will be moving out Friday or Saturday morning. Our policing operation from Saturday onwards simply returns to our normal drink safe precinct response with the additional resources of our colleagues from our neighbouring districts and our areas. So what we look at is more of a focus on the night clubs and lysis venues because the New South Wales kids are generally over 18. The focus is on our normal business if you like which is policing licensed areas, 106 of them in the drink safe precinct and making sure that we look at simple things like IDs. Anyone who still is 17 commits an offence if they try to enter a lysis premises with a false ID throughout a dollar fine for example. The big thing for us is New South Wales and Victorian people aren't quite used to the laws in relation to drinking in the streets in Queensland. It is an offence to drink in any public place in Queensland unless it's specifically signed which is a little bit different from the other states. Young people need to be aware that even if you are over 18, if you're drinking in a public place it's an on the spot $100 fine. If you're asked to leave a lysis premises because of your intoxication for any other reason it's a $225 fine to fail to leave. Using a false ID to enter a lysis premises is a $300 fine. A common thing we do get is that people share IDs and one young person might give their ID to another younger person so they can get into a night club. To share your ID with someone else for that purpose it's a $500 fine. Is there much tension between New Zealand School Leads and Australian School Leads that they seem to be stirring up the crowd a bit with some arrests last night? That's right. I don't see there's any particular issues with any particular groups. What we do find is that often kids simply hang together because that's the school group that they've come from. There are often small groups of kids from all over the place so I thought sure we'll find the same with New South Wales and Victorian kids they'll come up as groups. We often find the same with 18 plus events such as the end of season football tours. The full team simply hang out together and from time to time there are groups of young people that do hang out and that's not surprising. I know one that you've touched on before about making more of the different laws but any other advice or just general advice for the New South Wales School is any message for the people that come in? The only other bit of advice I would like to pass on to young people who are attending is the synthetic cannabis and of course the fake ecstasy pills as they are sometimes marketed and thanks to the vigilance of some of the people in the media we've made some further inquiries in relation to some people selling pills that thought to be energy pills however as a precaution we seized eight weeks of the search warrant yesterday on a New South Wales business group operating in surface paradise and seized 8,000 what are alleged by that person to be energy pills however we've seized those and we're having them forensically examined to determine whether they contain any of the banned substances that have recently been added to the schedule. If of course they do contain those banned substances those 8,000 pills could be alleged to have been a part of a number of other pills which have been sold in the surface paradise area and of course trafficking in a dangerous drug case of 15 to 20 years in the imprisonment penalty so we do remind the young people from New South Wales and indeed our young Queensland people that we are vigilant people selling herbal tablets or tablets purporting to give natural highs often do contain dangerous chemicals and dangerous drugs which may cause illness unconsciousness, unconsciousness, vomiting, seizures and some of these things are often made by crooks in unhygienic conditions using a number of dangerous chemicals so the message is simply this if someone offers you pills purporting to have some type of natural high or purporting to mimic the effects of other illicit drugs they will be illegal, they will be dangerous don't risk it, if one of your friends ingests one of those tablets and they become ill, call 000 make sure you tell the ambulance what they've had if you've got near the other pills left over make sure you hand them over the safety of young people is paramount in our New South Wales people coming to Queensland need to know that part of our strategy to reduce alcohol and drug related violence and harm in surface paradise is also to crack down on intoxication, crack down on the use of illicit drugs, crack down on the use of synthetic drugs there's a lot of different in New South Wales to our own understanding of the synthetic drugs the laws are different in different states however we need to reinforce that when you're in Queensland do what the Queenslanders do and that is obey the laws, don't take drugs that are illegal, don't take substances that are purported to mimic the effects of illicit substances because the chances are they will contain dangerous drugs and you could not only be risking your health but unfortunately due to drug or alcohol intoxication you may become a victim or a perpetrator of a crime and to this point we haven't had any serious crimes involving young people this week and we'd like to keep it that way. Are you expecting a lot of New South Wales people this year or have you got anecdotes of evidence that's going to be noticed? It's a different environment it becomes more of a policing operation for the CBD and the nightclub precincts our focus of course is keeping all of our young people safe and keeping the drinks safe, precinct safe the bonus we have this year we have been doing eye visibility early intervention policing which means police on the beat in the clubs, checking people out making sure they're not intoxicated the 12 months continuously now since last school we've put nearly 12,000 hours of extra policing into educating licensees and our partners in the community working with our chill-out zone partners working with our department communities and officer liquor and gaming regulation from our point of view we will expect an influx of young people it's a different operation the tide turns tomorrow night but overall we will have a similar policing response a safety response that we've had this week