Broome crime wave defended by Cook Government MPs Divina D’Anna, Simone McGurk

State MPs have claimed reporting on Broome’s crime wave has turned the town into a “Halloween movie”, despite new police statistics showing the scale of the problem and locals saying it’s like a war zone. Speaking to media in Broome on Wednesday, Kimberley MP Divina D’Anna and Youth Minister Simone McGurk hit back at the crime wave claims, saying antisocial behaviour was not what the town was known for. “While there are issues, it’s not the Halloween movie that is being portrayed in the media right now,” Ms D’Anna said. “I’m gonna be honest, I get offended when I’m walking into Parliament in Perth. “When I ask people to come to Broome for holiday and they say, ‘No, we’ve seen this (in the media)’ and I say, ‘Well, actually, it’s not that bad because I’m still living and I’m still there.” Ms McGurk also pushed back on the crime wave reports. “Broome is a beautiful place. It’s a fantastic place to live. Everyone I know who lives here and spends time here absolutely loves it,” she said. “Antisocial behaviour and crime is there but it is not the thing that characterises Broome and I think we also need to keep some of the observations in proportion.” The comments come after The West Australian travelled to the Kimberley town, and found business owners were under siege from a seemingly never-ending wave of youth crime. Mitre 10 manager Mick Chapman said youths had been arming themselves with pepper spray and described the once idyllic holiday getaway now “feels like Beirut”. Liquor Licensing director Lanie Chopping is also looking into whether to escalate Kimberley-wide liquor restrictions in Broome and Derby. A Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries Spokesperson confirmed a recent letter sent to Ms Chopping by Deputy Police Commissioner Allan Adams would not inform her decision. Using updated statistics, Mr Adams asked the director to roll out Carnarvon-style bans across the Kimberley, Pilbara, Mid-West-Gascoyne and Goldfields-Esperance regions. According to the numbers, in 2022 the total of alcohol-related offences in Broome was 22 times higher than the metropolitan rate, 3.7 times higher than the regional average and 11 times higher than the State as a whole over the same period. Alcohol-related family assault figures were even worse with Broome having 28 times the metropolitan rate of offences, 4 times the regional rate and 12 times the rate as the State as a whole. The total offences for the town over the same time period were also 15 times higher than the metropolitan area, 3.4 times higher than the regional rate and 12 times higher than the State as a whole. The statistics also reveal the total amount of offences for Broome over the last decade (2013 to 2022) had increased by 142 per cent and alcohol-related family assaults had increased by 130 per cent over the same period. Shadow police minister Peter Collier backed the liquor restrictions across much of regional WA, saying it needed to be paired with other responses to stop country towns from “bleeding with lawlessness”. But if the 25 towns were to be slapped with tighter booze controls, other measures would need to be taken to help solve dire community problems, Mr Collier said. “Straight away, you’re going to see an escalation in sly grogging, without a shadow of a doubt ... the problem would just be moved from one town to another,” he said.