Not that long ago, there were 20 police or more located at Beaudesert, possibly nearly 30, giving a good police presence in town to keep people safe and proactively deal with crime.
My lobbying saw a new police station built, but sadly under this government police numbers have fallen greatly and from Beaudesert through to Jimboomba and down to Kooralbyn and Rathdowney, there is now a shortage of police on the ground to deal with crime in a timely manner.
Recently I have had many reports about police not being able to deal with crime, and youth crime in particular, in a prompt way—not the way they should be able to. In Queensland, we lost 322 police officers across the State in the 18 months to the end of 2023.
The way in which this State Labor Government has overseen a massive drop in police is a disgrace.
Everywhere in Queensland is suffering from it, but particularly in the Beaudesert district. This government are weak on crime, they are weak on youth crime and police are voting with their feet because of it. It will only improve when Queensland shows Labor the door in 2024.
Watch Jon’s recent speech in Queensland Parliament here.
