Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Member for Blain Mark Turner swung into action after seeing a man waving a fuel hose around and flicking a flame at a Pinelands servo

Transcript

Member for Blain Mark Turner swung into action after seeing a man waving a fuel hose around and flicking a flame at a Pinelands servo · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And joining me in the studio right now is the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: member for Blaine, Mark Turner.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Mark.
• 0:05
  Speaker 3: Good morning Katie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Now, good to have you in the studio.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I was I was going to ask you firstly, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I will in just a moment about this situation that
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: unfolded over the weekend before we get to that. Though
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: you are indeed a former police officer. We were just
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: talking about these trespass notices and how exactly they're going
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: to work, and Jay had messaged through questioning how exactly
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: can you issue a trespass notice if you don't have
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the person's details, if they refuse to give you their details.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Have you got a bit further insight into that?
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  Speaker 3: I can certainly give you an example.
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  Speaker 4: If it was a security provider, let's say it with
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  Speaker 4: somebody at my Electra office. We haven't had to do
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  Speaker 4: it yet, then we'd be looking at getting the CCTV,
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  Speaker 4: writing a statement with as much detail as possible about them,
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  Speaker 4: putting the stills from the CCTV on that trespass notice,
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  Speaker 4: as well as the details of serving it, so that
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  Speaker 4: when they came back we could give that information to
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: police and say this was when they were trespassed, how
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: they were trespassed.
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  Speaker 3: And this is the identifying information of who they are.
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  Speaker 1: How successful do you reckon it's going to be this
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  Speaker 1: change with the trespass notices.
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  Speaker 4: It's like you mentioned when you were talking about it,
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  Speaker 4: it's we have all these offenses with fine provisions, but
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  Speaker 4: you can see from the register of unpaid fines that
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  Speaker 4: they're just not paid. And whilst we don't have warrants
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  Speaker 4: of commitment people on getting put in prison for unpaid fines,
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  Speaker 4: we don't have any space in the prison. Ye, it's
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  Speaker 4: a stopgap measure. And the other thing with the trespass
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  Speaker 4: notices is you think most of the time people are trespassed,
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  Speaker 4: it's for being disorderly or violent disorder under the Summary
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  Speaker 4: Offenses Act anyway, which are both arrestable offenses.
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  Speaker 1: So realistically, I mean, if they're breaking the law, they
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  Speaker 1: should be arrested anyhow.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you would expect me to say that I'm
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  Speaker 3: a former cop.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well this is the thing speaking of we
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: know that. Well, you had to switch back your roles
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  Speaker 1: over the weekend helping arrest a young man acting erratically
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  Speaker 1: and dangerously at a service station.
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  Speaker 2: So what exactly happened over the weekends.
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  Speaker 4: The Andy from Neptune's Public Order Response Unit invited me
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  Speaker 4: out on Friday night just to see what services they're
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  Speaker 4: providing for our community. Obviously there's been the media that
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  Speaker 4: they're out in Karma and Myra.
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  Speaker 3: Put my turn back in Karma and Malac sit till.
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  Speaker 4: I don't go to the northern suburbs very often, and
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  Speaker 4: they've been in the Palmerston CBD. I'm very keen to
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  Speaker 4: get them in our electorate as well, because it means
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  Speaker 4: I won't have to walk the streets at three am.
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  Speaker 4: We were driving back into Palmerston just shortly after midnight
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  Speaker 4: and we've seen this chap waving a fuel hose around
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  Speaker 4: done the U boat gone in there, A couple of
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  Speaker 4: members of public of out what fuel bowser he was
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: hiding behind. So we've had to go and deal with it.
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  Speaker 1: Goodness me and I mean, he must have been quite
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  Speaker 1: concerned to be doing a U turn. To go back
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  Speaker 1: in there and see him with this fuel bowser, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: were you worried that he was going to do something
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  Speaker 1: even more dangerous.
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  Speaker 4: The first thing I said to Andy as we drove
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  Speaker 4: in was be careful. We've seen the flickering of lighters
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  Speaker 4: as we'd gone past, and I remember from West Australia,
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  Speaker 4: I think it was Maddington. We had the big serve
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  Speaker 4: of explosion over there, and we've just had that tragedy
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: over in Ireland when the vaporing knights nights. But he
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  Speaker 4: needed dealing.
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  Speaker 2: With, yeah, and so what exactly did you do?
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  Speaker 3: We've tried to engage with him. Ultimately, I don't.
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  Speaker 4: Know whether he was affected by a mix of alcohol
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  Speaker 4: and the fuel or both most likely, but we've had
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  Speaker 4: to detain him, unfortunately, until police arrived.
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  Speaker 3: So it was very fortunate that I had Andy with me.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think one of the most difficult things
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  Speaker 4: was they'd been allegedly been an instant beforehand, so the
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  Speaker 4: doors of the servoy were all smashed up locked, the
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  Speaker 4: staff were inside on the phone to police, so it
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  Speaker 4: was just Andy and I on the fore court with
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  Speaker 4: a sweaty, fuel covered chap, trying to make the best
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  Speaker 4: of a bad situation.
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  Speaker 1: Were you worried that it was going to sort of
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  Speaker 1: escalate in any way and were you worried about the
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  Speaker 1: safety of other people?
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  Speaker 4: Well, what worried me was if if we didn't deal
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  Speaker 4: with it, then it was going to go bad. I
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  Speaker 4: was reasonably confident and he's been doing this a long
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  Speaker 4: time as if I between the two of us, we
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: were going to be able to deal with it. It's
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  Speaker 4: just another situation though where and again is there but
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  Speaker 4: for the grace of God. Well, we need more resources.
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  Speaker 4: And if it's the public order responseing it, that's great.
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  Speaker 3: But that's what fills.
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  Speaker 4: Me with terror even thinking about it, because we were
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  Speaker 4: there for about I think about an hour before police arrived,
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  Speaker 4: and it's what could have happened that worries me.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, you and I have spoken a lot about
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  Speaker 1: various issues within the Northern Territory Police Force and do
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  Speaker 1: you think that we need more police.
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  Speaker 4: We don't need more police. I think this is fundamentally
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  Speaker 4: where the CLP and I differ. We've got more police
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  Speaker 4: head of population than anywhere else in the country. The
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  Speaker 4: Northern Territory taxpayer is paying more per person than anyone
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  Speaker 4: else in the country. We've just got lots of hurt
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: and broken police because we're not looking after them properly.
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  Speaker 4: If we looked after them properly and we worked smart,
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  Speaker 4: not hard, then we'd know where they are.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think that we're working smart, not hard when
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: it comes to raising the age of criminal responsibility. What
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  Speaker 1: do you think about that change?
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  Speaker 3: And is a pivot and a half?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you think that's.
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  Speaker 1: Going to mean then for our officers? Because I think
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  Speaker 1: that the whole point at the moment is that a
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  Speaker 1: lot of police officers morale is low. I know you've
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  Speaker 1: spoken about it before, I've spoken about it before, We've
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  Speaker 1: seen it through the Police Association survey. How do you
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  Speaker 1: think changes like that then sort of impact our officers
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  Speaker 1: on the ground.
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  Speaker 4: The problem with these changes, especially when you frame them
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  Speaker 4: around the conversation around police morale, is that they're devastating.
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  Speaker 4: The police want to be able to help our community.
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  Speaker 4: That's the reason that they go to work every day.
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  Speaker 4: It's one of those vacations like nursing. You don't do
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  Speaker 4: it for the money. So when you feel that's being
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  Speaker 4: ripped out from underneath you, you question why you're doing
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  Speaker 4: it in the first place. You need to be able
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  Speaker 4: to see and this is why I would assume the
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  Speaker 4: Northern Territory Police Association put out the quotes that they did.
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  Speaker 4: They need to be able to see the alternative, and
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  Speaker 4: at the moment they just don't. I haven't had a
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  Speaker 4: briefing on it yet. I can see that there's other
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  Speaker 4: ways around this. There are powers that can be used
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  Speaker 4: under the Care and Protection Children Act. There's certainly different
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: things that can be done, and I can see the
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  Speaker 4: thinking of the government, but certainly from talking to your
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  Speaker 4: rank and file police, it's not being communicated to them.
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  Speaker 2: And so do you support it? As a member of Parliament.
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  Speaker 4: I definitely support the raising the age of criminal responsibility.
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  Speaker 4: Putting kids in prison doesn't work. And when I'm talking
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  Speaker 4: to my elector, I just go back to Dondale twenty fifteen,
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  Speaker 4: ramming back in to Dondale, not ramming out of it,
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: ramming back into it. If it worked, they wouldn't be
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: ramming back into Dondale. It's an institutionalized crime academy that
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  Speaker 4: we need to deal with the problem before it becomes
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  Speaker 4: a problem. And that's why I'm so angry about the
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  Speaker 4: failure of things like Strikeforce Oryan which should have been
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  Speaker 4: the crown Jewels in the Territory, Labour's government's armory to
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  Speaker 4: prevent things like this happening. And is said is just
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  Speaker 4: two police officers doing their very level best, but they've
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  Speaker 4: got no resources or no funding.
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  Speaker 1: There is so much that we could continue to discuss.
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  Speaker 1: Unfortunately we're out of time. Mark Turner, the member for Blaine,
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  Speaker 1: Good on you obviously over the weekend. To you and
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  Speaker 1: Dandy Price de escalating that situation, it sounds like a
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  Speaker 1: pretty frightening one. Thanks very much for coming in this
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  Speaker 1: morning to talk about it.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you, Katie, thank you