Lower Clarence to have more police

MP Steve Cansdell outside NSW Parliament with the petition.

THE Lower Clarence will have more police on duty if the NSW Coalition wins office at the next State election.

Member for Clarence Steve Cansdell has guaranteed police numbers will increase and nominated that at least six more are needed to ensure adequate response times.

“At the moment there is only one car on duty from Sunday to Thursday nights and two on Friday and Saturday,” Mr Cansdell said.

“If there’s an arrest that means that car is off the road for a number of hours.

“We need a minimum of six more police for the Lower Clarence to ensure that we can get one more car on duty.”

Mr Cansdell said his position as secretary to the Coalition police spokesperson made him confident he would be able to honour his promise.

“I’m pretty sure that I will stay in that position when we’re in government,” he said.

Mr Cansdell plans to use water torture on the government on the issue of police numbers.

He has collected 5000 names on a petition calling for greater police numbers in Yamba.

“I’ll table a few pages of the petition every day. That’s about 80 signatures,” he said.

“I’ve got enough signatures to keep that going until the end of the year.”

He said the Lower Clarence was way behind the rest of the State in police numbers.

“On average there’s one police officer per 550 people in NSW,” he said.

“In the Clarence the average is one in 1000 and on the Lower Clarence it’s one in 1500. In Yamba during the holiday periods that number is about one in every 2200.”

Mr Cansdell is outraged by allegations by NSW Police Minister Michael Daley that the Opposition has been guilty of ‘police bashing’.

In an exchange in State Parliament on Thursday, the Minister labelled the Opposition as ‘police bashers’ and refused to withdraw the remark.

Mr Cansdell said this claim is offensive to the 5000 people who signed his petition.

“With his latest remarks, the Labor Minister is not just attacking me and my colleagues, but all locals who know we need more local cops,” Mr Cansdell said.