 As you know, we have bring a task force of 50 officers from several of our other regions to work here on the Gold Coast for the next month, targeting anti-social behaviour, people who have no respect for the rights and liberties of other people, and certainly Hoont will be targeting through intelligence-based information anywhere from basically the Gold Coast District and Coomery District, so that's almost been lead down to the New South Wales border. Obviously we know that most people in this area are quite law abiding. There are those few though who are intent on making things hard and bad for the rest of the community and they will be the people that our task force will be targeting over the next month. I might hand over to Assistant Commissioner Paul Wilson who will also give you some details of what's been happening here on the coast in recent times and also come in on operations here. Thanks very much Commissioner. Overnight we've had a 25 arrest in surface paradise, which is a normal night for surface paradise policing. I'm looking forward to the briefing at 6pm tonight when the 50 extra police arrive. They will be deployed in all areas other than the surface paradise nightclub precinct. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. This afternoon, overnight at surface paradise there has been 25 arrests, which is a normal night in surface paradise. Unfortunately there's been an assault and rob of a young lady in the vicinity of Varsity Lakes, which my detectives are working on now and hopeful for a breakthrough in that matter later today. The other matter at Varsity Lakes in recent days with the young gentleman being unlawfully wounded, he is recovering well and detectives are working through in relations and leads in relation to that investigation. In relation to the investigation of the lady discovered in the Albert River, inquiries are continuing there and we're also hopeful for a breakthrough in relation to that matter and at this point in time that matter does appear to be non-suspicious, but at this point we're still investigating the circumstances surrounding the tragedy of that lady being found deceased in the river. Tonight we will have a 6pm briefing with the 50 extra police and most police will be deployed, as the commissioner said, between Cumra and Gold Coast districts. They will be in areas other than the surface paradise nightclub precinct addressing any social behaviour that exists in the community. These police will be specifically targeting those types of offences and that will be all intelligence driven and my tacticians for both districts will be there to brief them and they will be buddied up with some local police to make sure that they have local knowledge in relation to all the activities. This is an ongoing from the operation of Polo that we've run for the last month in the Cumra District here every Thursday, Friday and Saturday and where Mr Flory's staff have arrested over 50 people for almost 200 charges in the Cumra and the Rang and Majrubah areas, specifically in relation to antisocial and other behaviour that's being addressed in these areas. When you say antisocial behaviour, what sort of offences are you looking out for? All street type offences, all hooning offences, drink driving offences and any other criminal activity. Unfortunately in recent times people have gone out to investigate disturbances in their streets and people have been stabbed and this is a sort of activity that rolls into serious criminal matters and of course we will investigate all and the high visibility presence and they will start their shift at 6pm and we'll be going right through to the forum morning and with the possibility of them being continued on due to our course of service. You're aware we have a major AFL game at Carrara Stadium and as a result of these major sporting events we do find that we have a rather increasing course for service. Last weekend on the Saturday in the region we had over 600 calls for service in the Saturday 24 hour period which shows that it is very very busy for calls for service. So these extra staff will allow us to address all antisocial behaviour that is taking place in the Gold Coast local government area in the Galtae City Mall. Is Operation Seymour supposed to go over a month or so? Yes one calendar month until the end of August. Is that enough do you think or can that be reviewed at the end of the time? It will be reviewed? Certainly we're going to evaluate all of the outcomes of Operation Seymour. This is really about the hearts and minds of the Gold Coast. We know that the actual figures the crime figures are showing us a long term downward trend but that doesn't help to have these types of street offences occurring. So by having a surge, having a blitz on antisocial behaviour and the types of unlawful behaviour that the Hearns are responsible for people who as I said have no respect for other people's property or their personal safety. We hope that that will bring the situation much more back under control in terms of the hearts and minds of the community of the Gold Coast. Particularly from the perspective that we take and the model that we're using for Operation Seymour by bringing police in from other regions is one that we've used many, many times before either for major events or major issues similar to this throughout Queensland. What is that downward trend? Is that on the Gold Coast as well? Absolutely. Crime right across the board even armed robberies if you look back over the last 10 years you'll see that the trend is still downward. So then... Because there's been a spike in social behaviour here there's been a spike in certainly robberies here on the Gold Coast both armed and unarmed. People are afraid and we want to show them that we're taking that fear seriously that we are doing something about it. As you know, Operation Seymour is only part of a wider package of initiatives that we're doing to try and address the issues here in the Gold Coast. Are there fears legitimate thing if there is an overall downward trend? The perception can be reality and I think that that's what's happened here on the Coast that that perception of the fear of crime has been driven by this spike particularly in robberies and we need to address that. And if perception is reality is the perception of more police on the beach the reality that perhaps criminals won't appear? Certainly by specifically targeting the types of people who are responsible for a street crime for these types of robberies that are occurring we hope that that will certainly show people that by targeting those groups, by putting them before the court where they deserve to be that we have taken proper action and hopefully reduce that fear of crime that's out there in the community. Is a month long enough to do that? I think it is, absolutely. But as Assistant Commissioner Wilson said we have some strict criteria that we're looking at in the evaluation and we will determine towards the end of the month period we will look at what other strategies will result. How does the shifts work if you've got 50 officers on tonight? Will you be having a rotating shift and how does that work? Will you always have 50 officers on the beach? Paul do you want to talk to them? We won't have 50 officers on the beach what we do is from our intelligence we know when our pick times are in relation to any social behaviour so I won't be having all these officers start at six o'clock in the morning these officers will be strategically rusted each day to make sure that we have the opportunity to address the issues. And I know you've probably already said this but specifically what will they be looking at? They'll be looking at all anti-social behaviour from street offences through to traffic offences through to hooning in particular in relation to drunken disorderliness and issues that are recently we had disturbances in the street after people affected by alcohol people coming out to chastise them and unfortunately members of the public being unlawfully wounded or stabbed and therefore this is the sort of activity that we want to nip in the bud and make sure that there's a high visibility presence of police around showing little tolerance to anyone that is behaving in an inappropriate way in the good order of the community. We'll be looking at the railway and the M1 in that sense. The M1 all the shopping centres throughout the days we'll be making sure that we're looking at the crowds that come from the sporting events especially the public transporter arterials as you're all aware it's a very busy as far as hoons and hooning activity people come down, all that'll be addressed and in particular drink driving will be well and truly addressed. Major traffic operations, there's a range of operations planned right throughout the region just with our normal resources from Logan right through to the border tonight and tomorrow night from the rest of my general duties police in the traffic branch as well and operation resolved at the moment they've arrested two more people in the last couple of days so I think there's nine persons being arrested now in excess of 50 charges and that's nine armed robberies that have now been solved since operation resolved as commenced here a few weeks ago. I think it's really important to remember that the operational police here on the coast have been working very very hard in relation to all of these matters over the past months this operation that we're starting tonight simply supplements that great work that's being done and certainly we hope that the community recognises that we take their safety seriously. When you were talking about you were saying about the hearts and minds last night was there a case of a guy thinking he had been robbed so we jumped in his car and chased him with big thieves, would you say that's a concern? Certainly we don't ask people to go out of their way to do things like that particular individual we'd rather them contact us but look I can understand why that person who believed that someone was trying to break into his premises took that action to go after them and unfortunately it ended up in a crash and a further investigation of the matters it turned out that those people weren't acting unlawfully the investigation that was undertaken so that's the concern that we have but what we are saying is we need the public to take responsibility to ring us when they see problems to let us know and it's through that level of intelligence that we can better task the extra officers from the operations team Do you have a warning against vigilante reactions? Absolutely, we do not condone vigilanteism in any way it has the potential for people to get very very seriously hurt or even killed that leave the enforcement to the trained officers of the Queensland Police Service What's your message to the crooks for the next month? Look, you can expect to be pulled up you can expect to be stopped and questioned by police and if you're doing something wrong you can expect to be dealt with either by a ticket or be arrested and that's the bottom line We're saying to them, obey the law let everyone else enjoy the coast and enjoy their normal liberties that they have don't go out of your way to do something that's going to affect them and you'll be okay I mean people have got to understand this is not going to suppress the normal good behaviour every single day night just to have a good time but not to do anything unlawful or interfere with the rights of others but if people do do that they can expect to be stopped and dealt with by the police With the 50 extra police on the coast for a month how much is it going to cost? Well it's a significant cost in terms of having the accommodation because we're actually going to leave them here on the coast they're going to stay down here Does it leave other regions a little bit short? No, we've been very careful we're actually taking these officers from four regions and one of our commands so we've spread the load and it's only a maximum of 10 out of any one of those other areas and bearing in mind those other areas have hundreds of police we don't think it will impact to the greater And the issue of weapons being addressed because that's been a concern to residents about the origin of weapons it seems to be producing of personalised knives Look weapons are continually a problem right across Queensland and we certainly understand that we have a very restrictive weapons licensing policy and process in this state and it's a good one but police will be on the lookout for firearms, knives those sorts of weapons over them particularly over this next month Okay, everyone's okay?