REPORTS about youth crime in Mount Isa are dead accurate and a big problem facing the community according to KAP Leader and Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter.
He said to address the problem a return to old methods is needed.
“I’ve spoken with Mount Isa City Councillor Kim Coghlan and there is a strong opinion in town that there is a fortune going into various instrumentalities, but they aren’t achieving the desired outcomes,” Mr Katter said.
“The money is not effective in addressing the problem. People are entitled to be very angry, seeing their tax payer dollars being burnt up in large wads when they’re not getting an acceptable outcome,” he said.
“The young kids themselves have horrific problems and I’m not going to go into all those problems but they are in health and in other areas.
“Government Departments and other instrumentalities need to be judged on their outcomes but as the great Wayne Bennett said, “if you keep doing things the same way, you’ll keep getting the same outcomes”.
He said the situation needs to be approached differently and some of the money will have to be shifted into different approaches.
“In North-West Queensland 200 years ago, if you played up you were booted out of the camp and you stayed out living by yourself in the bush until you were prepared to behave yourself.
“When you were prepared to behave like a civilised human being you were allowed back, and that’s effectively what we need to do here.
He said we need to get these kids off their backsides, to do a day’s work and try to re-join the human race.
“The same as the laws that were there 200 years ago.”
