ROCKINGHAM Mayor Barry Sammels says he is “fed up” and “disappointed” with continued criticism of the city’s social demographic and criminal reputation after an article in The Australian newspaper earlier this week named Rockingham as one of t
Cr Sammels said the article by David Penberthy in the paper’s satirical column, The Punch, painted an inaccurate picture of the city as a crime capital.
Rockingham was the only WA suburb to be included in Penberthy’s top 10 bogan suburbs in Australia, making the list on the grounds that the city “gives half of the Western Australian police force something to do every night”.
Cr Sammels said he could see the article was intended to be a light-hearted piece. However, he did not think it was funny.
“It was written tongue-in-cheek but I’m disappointed, especially with the comments in relation to the police. To make a statement that half the police force in Western Australia is dealing with issues in Rockingham at night time is ridiculous and irresponsible journalism,” he said.
“We might have anti-social behaviour on a weekly basis here, but a lot of areas do and it’s not something that on a weekly basis makes national news, as Mr Penberthy claims.
“I don’t think it’s funny. If he wants to do a light-hearted article do it light-hearted, but this isn’t light-hearted to me. A lot of people read these articles and take it seriously.”
Cr Sammels said the council ran a number of programs through its City Safe team aimed at reducing anti-social behaviour and curbing crime, such as security patrols, CCTV cameras, graffiti removal and the adopt a bus shelter programs.
“We’ve heard this term ‘boganville’ and all these sorts of issues before and I’m a bit fed up. But at the end of the day I don’t think we’re any worse than most areas and I don’t think we’re the boganville of WA, if that’s the term they want to use,” he said.
POLICE REACTION - PAGE 5