Straight from city council A personal view, by Councillor Steve Morris

It was an ill-conceived plan that over promised but failed to deliver.

Council's two-year folly trying to end rough sleeping and begging through an illegal bylaw finally ended last week.

It cost nearly $100,000 and hundreds of hours of staff time.

It started with genuine complaints about a begging gang that was intimidating and threatening residents in Greerton.

Some well-meaning councillors decided they would try and get Council to do the job of the police.

Rather than focusing on threatening and intimidating behaviour, the bylaw turned all beggars and those desperate enough to sleep on the street into offenders.

The proponents of the bylaw were warned repeatedly that it would attract legal challenge and be struck down by the court, but they pressed on.

That legal challenge came, but it ultimately took an election and a new council to end it.
Instead of pushing our five local MPs to give Police the resources they need to fight intimidation and threatening behaviour, the last two years has been wasted.

Councillors raised false expectations that Council would step in and deal with these issues.

Our hardworking bylaws officers were turned into toothless ‘council cops;' lacking legal powers and expected to deal with people who have mental health and addiction issues without the training the police have.

When the situation improved in Greerton, some thought it the result of the bylaw rather than the extra resourcing that went into housing the homeless.

The distraction is finally over, now it's time for our local MPs to step up and resource our hardworking Police.