Following State and national Australian Hotels Association (AHA) president David Basheer’s address at his popular pre-Christmas lunch on Tuesday, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has conceded more needs to be done to address the scourge of violent gang crime and attacks currently hitting Adelaide pubs.
Adelaide hoteliers are fed up with being targeted by the same offenders, demanding mandatory jail terms for these criminals.
On Wednesday Malinauskas responded to Basheer’s message, agreeing it was the responsibility of the government to get on top of the issue.
The problem was confined to a small group of offenders, Malinauskas said.
“Something like 20 or 25 serious repeat offenders that are doing an extraordinary amount of the crime that we see in metropolitan Adelaide,” he told radio station FIVEAA.
Conversations with Basheer had prompted the government to make many significant legislative changes, Malinauskas continued.
His anti-crime measures now include the workplace order protection scheme. Publicans have been given the authority to bar someone from their premises, and should the person return, they will be committing an offence with a maximum penalty of two years’ jail time.
Previously the law required police to issue those orders.
New laws have also been put in place tackling activity of street gangs, and serious repeat young offenders will now be facing tougher bail and sentencing laws.
Youths who are classified as repeat offenders will now have a presumption against bail, previously only used for extremely serious crimes such as murder.
Further, offenders will be required to serve at least four-fifths of their sentence, rather than long parole periods or suspended sentences.
South Australian Police commissioner Grant Stevens, who was present at the AHA lunch, said police were frustrated by continually interacting with the same offenders, and while he understood trying to keep people out of the system, he hoped magistrates and judges would prioritise public safety.
Opposition spokesman Jack Batty said if offenders could get away with their crimes, they would keep offending and proposed “tough new laws” including a one-strike rule, which is similar to the presumption against bail laws currently in place.
“We want the law to put an emphasis on protecting everybody else in the community rather than the person who may have committed the crimes in the first place,” Malinauskas told FIVEAA.
