Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Koch Group of Properties Director Meredith Koch has likened police, dealing with anti-social behaviour, to a laundry service

Transcript

Koch Group of Properties Director Meredith Koch has likened police, dealing with anti-social behaviour, to a laundry service · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Joining me on the line right now is Meredith Kosh.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: She's the company director of Cosh Group of properties. They
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: own the likes of North Lakes and Palm Plaza. Good
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: morning to Emeredis.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Good morning Katie.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: How are you not too bad?
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate your calling this morning, Meredith. I understand
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: that you've had some real issues out at North Lakes
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Shopping Center.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Katie. We have issues all over Darwin and the Greater
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Darwen region and the properties that we own, and those
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: issues are causing us a great deal of banks, They're
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: causing our customers a great deal of banks, and they're
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: they've escalated to the point that we no longer know
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: how to approach these problems. We've had meetings with the
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Chief Minister, We've had meetings with local councilors, We've had
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: meetings with MLAs. We actually have a warden MLA in
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: our own Flake shopping center. And it appears to us
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: that the owners of not just shopping centers, but commercial
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: buildings and the like, the onus is put on us
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: to require some sort of knee jerk reaction in funding
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: to deal with the problem as it occurs, rather than
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: there be actions that pre empt either preamps the problem
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: or when the Minister talks about the wide and varied
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: and complex issues that she's dealing with and is trying
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: to solve. There is nothing that is immediate to these offenders.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Could I give you some examples?
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, So.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: For example, we had recently three juveniles that were all
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: wearing ankle bracelets, smash and I think you would where
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: already smashed the subway, smashed all the glass, smashed the
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: interior glass, pictures and fittings, and they stabbed a customer
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: in the legs, and they used pocket knife to threaten
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: the liquorand security guard to return back into the inside
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: of the Northlake shopping center. Now I have, as you
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: can imagine, every time there's in a sense, we need
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: to speak to the police. We get a promise number
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: and find out what's happening. Now, those three juveniles were
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: already on three lots of bail, so they are wearing
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: their ankle bracelets. They are already on this third veil,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: and the police have explained to me that because the
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: system takes so long, so if they're charged, they'll be
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: released the next morning after they've appeared in court. Then
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: they may need to reappear in reappear in another three months,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: and they'll inapt six months throughout this process, so it
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: generally takes I am told by the police, approximately twelve
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: months to actually deal with an offense. So in the meantime,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: these juveniles are allowed to behave as they please, whereby
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: they are not showing to have any repercussion if they
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: are wearing these ankle bracelets and then reasfend.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: It's unbelievable.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: What I'm trying to push for is change at the
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: top where these if they're juveniles, were not juveniles. The
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: age is really neither here nor there. That they are
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: taken out of town rather than just put you know,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: the police call their system the laundromats. They pick them up,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: they wash them up, they hang them out to dry,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: and they put them out again. That the attrition rate
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: in the Northern Territory for police is about eleven percent.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: So how can you possibly expect a police person to
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: put on his uniform every day with a positive approach
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: to what he's going to have before him when he
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: knows that there is a great likelihood all he's going
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: to do is run the laundromat, be the taxi driver
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: pick up the offender, take them in and I listen
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: to the sentinel directors earlier. The issue we also have
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: is it's all very well to move the bus into change,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: and again there is another example of the private enterprise
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: having to have to deal with the public problems, whereby
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: they have to spend all this money on moving the interchange.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: So again they don't seem to want to listen to
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: the fact that these are just knee jerk reactions. They
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: need the repercussion so that in the meantime, while they're
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: waiting to be heard in court, they are not going
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: to be back at that interchange, regardless of where it is,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: because the police just can't be their capes. We call
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: the police for any of our shopping centers, casual in
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: a village. Also we have shops in casing a village
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: that's a Strata title property. They can't get there within
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: twenty minutes or forty minutes quite often because they're dealing
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: with the last lots that they picked up. They've got
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: to be process that removes those police out of the system.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: It is when we talk sorry, it's such like it is.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So it's such a difficult situation that people are dealing
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: with at the moment. You know, I like, I feel
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: for you guys, I feel for businesses, I feel for homeowners,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: everybody that's being impacted by this, and I just can't
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: understand why there's not some urgency from the government exactly exactly.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: So we've had our letters to the Chief Minister. We
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: get her letters back and they're these they're just bland
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: comments about we understand the situation. We understand it's complex.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: We're always looking for wide and varied ways. There's a
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: really simple way to deal with this, and it's going
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: to assist with people getting jobs. They set up some
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: sort of for want of a better word, out of
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: town areas where these offenders need to work. I don't
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: I really don't believe community service would work where they've
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: got to come back and clean up their own miss
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: that that has often proven not to work because of
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: the lack of supervisory staff ye and the powers of
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: those supervisory staff. So they need to be removed and
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: then let's see if they like the way that works
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: for them, rather than put an ankle bracelet on them
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: and then they just turn up the next day in
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: the same location. If I can draw talked to you
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: as well about the costings. Yeah, so the Sentinel have
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: said that their cleaning bill is ten thousand a month.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just for outside, just for that car park area.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: So our cleaning bill for the last five years has
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: hovered around the eight thousand dollar mark. And that is
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: for our car park, the Lynx Road area. This is
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: for North Lakes shopping Center. I'm speaking specifically the Lynx
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Road area and the inside of the shopping center.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: And so that's a month, is it, Meridith?
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Eight thousand a month? We now are paying eleven thousand
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: a month because we have the itinerants coming into the
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: shopping center. They too, they leave it on the ground,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: they make mess. We get there the next our cleaners
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: get there early the next morning. Even Kate Warten rings
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: us frequently during the week to ask us to clean
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: up the mess that's been left outside her back to
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: or so. On top of cleaning costs, we then have
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: we did a trial period for a month whereby we
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: had security from ten am around the clock through to
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: five am, so we were without security from five am
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: to ten am. That was twenty three thousand dollars for
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: that month.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Wow, it's it's unsustainable Haiti.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: On top of that, the security company informed us that unfortunately,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: because of the experiences that security guard experience, they could
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: not have only one security guard. They would need us
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: to employ two security guards all this safety during certain periods. Goodness,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: we know that the dog handlers security guard works. That
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: comes also at a massive cost. And look, the North
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Slakes shopping center we speak specifically about it has always
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: been a small, quiet, pleasant shopping center for people to
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: come and quietly do their weekly shopping. I'm not really
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: sure how people would feel with a rottweiler or some
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: large dogs that they know is capable of aggressions.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Just makes you feel safer? Does it make you feel wary? Look,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: we own some several properties throughout the city. We can't
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: tenant high rise buildings in the CBD because when a
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: does show tenants around, they have to step over itinerants
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: to get in the door, they have to step over species,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: they have to step over rubbish.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Something has got to change.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, and all you do, if you walk around
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: the city, you will hear everybody say exactly the same thing.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: We have tenants who have their doors locked during the day.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Now in the city because they can't run the risk
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: of being threatened if our terearance come in the door
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: and they want money.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: It's unbelievable meritis.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I'm really sorry we are going to have to wrap
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: up just because if we have honestly got so many
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: people calling through on this issue this morning, you know
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: we've got.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: And it's a lot for us to try and sort
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: of take in.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate your calling this morning and giving us
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: that perspective. I think it is incredibly important for people
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: to hear the impact that this is having really very
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: broadly across the community on so many people, so many businesses,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: absolutely everybody.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: At this point, it is it is.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say we are all nearly
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: reached breaking point. Katie.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Meredith, thanks so much for having a chat with
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: me this morning.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate your time, pleasure.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Thank you.