Armadale mayor Henry Zelones is fed up with the city’s ‘underbelly’ and suggested a coalition of crime-plagued cities after the Armadale suburb topped the table for criminal offences outside the Perth CBD in 2015.
Figures collated by The West Australian last week from WA Police crime statistics revealed Armadale had 1215 assaults, burglaries, robberies, graffiti and car thefts last year.
Apart from Perth it was the worst suburb for assaults and car theft with 568 and 136 respectively.
It was the worst in the metropolitan area for home burglaries with 394.
Gosnells, Rockingham and Mandurah were the other poor performers with each recording total crimes of more than 750.
Mr Zelones wasn’t surprised at the statistics because they had been consistent for a long time and said enough was enough.
He said crime hotspots like Armadale were not given enough resources and the issue was being ‘pussyfooted’ around.
“If it was an outbreak of some disease or like a health scare you would have resources and doctors working on it like they do,” he said.
“But we don’t seem to treat crime in the same way even though…those scenarios have victims and all three seem to suffer as a consequence.
“This is something we seem to pussyfoot around about.”
He said residents were being told the systems in place were reducing crime but they weren’t.
“Can somebody please explain why we have to continually put up with this degradation on our community and at the same time we’re being told ‘oh look we’re doing this that and the other’,” he said.
“But every year the crime stats come out and they say the same thing.
“This underbelly that resides here is simply not being addressed.”
He would look into forming a coalition with councils like Gosnells, Mandurah and Rockingham to work out ways to address the crime.
“We’re the ones constantly being named, maybe we should get together and find out why it is our communities are being set up this way,” he said.
“It can’t be by accident, there’s something going on to say well how is it these people choose to live in our neighbourhood?”
He said Armadale Police Station should also be upgraded as soon as possible.
“They’re building police stations in what seems to be quiet safe suburbs that don’t have crime, I don’t get it,” he said.
Member for Armadale Tony Buti said he was annoyed because he had been campaigning for a 24/7 police station in Armadale but it had fallen on deaf ears.
“I’m arguing for what you have at the Cannington Police Station where you have a larger number of people that work out of that station,” he said.
Police Minister Liza Harvey said police officers worked out of Armadale Police Station 24/7 and resources at the station had increased.
“As a result of the Liberal-National Government’s commitment to grow the WA police by an additional 550 officers and the Frontline 2020 policing model, the number of sworn officers policing the Armadale community has more than doubled,” she said.
In Parliament this week she said Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan was going to work on putting extra resources into Armadale policing teams.
