Rarely A Dull Moment – Community Safety, Crime Prevention & Anti-social Behaviour

Welcome back to our regular feature, Rarely a Dull Moment where we report on the highlights of City of Fremantle Council and Committee meetings and other activities. We would have titled the feature Never a Dull Moment, but didn’t want to overpromise!

In 2026, we are very pleased to welcome Jenny Archibald to the RADM desk. Jenny will be well known to many Freo folk as a former Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Councillor of the City of Fremantle. Jenny brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her role as our RADM reporter and we are sure Shipees will look forward to her regular RADM reports. 

Welcome readers to our RADM report for the Strategic and General Services Committee Meeting of 11 November 2026. A rapid one at that – all of 26 minutes. Very snappy chairing by Cr Mofflin!

With no members of the public present, the meeting quickly moved on to the business of the evening. Only one elected member had a comment to make under Elected Member Communications – that being Cr Slaughter who reiterated that under the newly revised Waste Local Law (from the Strategic and General Services Meeting of 14 October 2026 SGSC2610-10 ADOPTION OF DRAFT WASTE LOCAL LAW 2026) –

“We’re not out to fine people for taking 10-cent containers…We are here to help. We are here to educate. We are all trying to make the streets cleaner, safer, nicer for everyone and we’re not following people around in the middle of the night to see if you’re taking 10c cans out of the bin”.

With that firmly clarified, we can rest assured that the system will keep working and people will not be harassed. 

THE HEADLINE STORY – definitely the return of SGSC2611-5 ADOPTION OF COMMUNITY SAFETY AND CRIME PREVENTION PLAN 2027-2031. This topic has done a number of rounds of extensive consultation in preparation for the final version of the plan. The document, which is for the next five years, covers a range of topics that were raised by members of the public and city stakeholders. 

The summary by Officers in their report to Council notes that this plan “provides a clear framework to guide collaboration, reduce crime and antisocial behaviour, improve perceptions of safety and enhance community resilience across Fremantle. The plan focuses on both daytime and nighttime safety and places a strong emphasis on advocacy, recognising that many community concerns fall outside the remit of local government.”

Officers also note that it “includes a range of education, environmental design, enforcement and surveillance initiatives, reflecting the City’s commitment to improving community safety through a balanced and proactive approach”. 

Issues raised during the consultation phase included “inadequate lighting, drug and alcohol use, homelessness, antisocial behaviour, vandalism, theft, intoxicated behaviour, inactive or underutilised public spaces, slow response times, and difficulties accessing or understanding reporting channels”. 

The community also “highlighted the importance of environmental design measures… cleanliness, graffiti removal, activation of public spaces and ongoing maintenance. There was also support for education initiatives, crime prevention programs, CCTV, and a greater focus on the safety of women, children, vulnerable community members and suburban neighbourhoods”

Certainly no small task!! 

Overall, the Committee members acknowledged the work of staff in bringing the plan together. However, in debating the topic, Cr Graham stepped up stating: “I fully support what’s happened here, but the underlying theme is that the antisocial behaviour problem that we have in Fremantle…drug and alcohol abuse…. illegal camping, property crime, the whole box and dice…we can’t really sugarcoat the problems that the city faces. And I’m just wondering if, given that we’re at committee, that the officers or the CEO or somebody might want to make a comment about any strategies apart from what’s in the plan…where we go to from here. I mean it’s not going to go away, is it? So we got to address it at some point”.

The CEO, Glen Dougall hopped in with the reply that “There has been some fairly extensive consultation about things that might improve Fremantle. I don’t think anyone is sugar coating the current circumstances that exist before us. The level of antisocial behaviour and substance abuse we’re seeing on the streets is at an all-time high”.

He added “that you’ll notice we’ve broken things into day and night responsibilities now. That was done deliberately to acknowledge that things that occur at night are different to what’s going on during the day….It’s a different cohort of people that are coming into the city at those times that we need to be mindful of……we are working very closely with police at the moment making sure we’re getting extra police patrols out working with our teams three days a week at least. …the thing that we say to community services and police constantly is – the earlier they’re out in the day, the better the day is in Freo…because we get on top of some of the antisocial behaviour and substance abuse”.

He also added “I think this plan goes some way towards that.….the other part… is you’ll see the city starting to undertake activation programs in key spots to try and make sure that we get…good activity going on – spots that are currently not receiving very good attention as far as behaviour goes”.

In summing up, the CEO noted “I think the office has done an enormous amount of work on it. I think we’ve got it in the right shape. So, it’s upon us now to try and deliver it and improve it”.

Cr Camarda certainly agreed: “I think it’s clear where community sentiment sits on this particular issue and its recognition in this report that many of the community concerns fall outside the remit of local government. So, it’s been a challenge all the way along to get higher levels of government and …other agencies to work together to get meaningful results”.

Cr Mofflin noted that he wanted to “echo that… this report is really focused on what the city …can control(and) what’s in within our remit… There are a lot of things that are just simply outside of our control that our community is dealing with every day…” … “I think this plan, by focusing on what the city can control and what the city can do, …really sets out a clear path for us to take actions …I’m really excited to see that happen”. 

The item was unanimously supported and will now go on to the next Council meeting (25 November 2026) for final sign off.

AND ALL THE REST:  

There were three items approved unanimously under delegated authority of the committee. These were SGSC2611-1 FCC702/26 REMOVAL AND DISPOSAL OF CONSTRUCTION & MAINTENANCE WASTE, SGSC2611-2 FCC 705/26 – SAMSON PARK LANDSCAPE AND DRAINAGE UPGRADES and SGSC2611-3 FCC714/26 – CHEMICAL FREE WEED CONTROL. On the latter, Cr Slaughter asked whether anything had changed on use of this technique over the past 2 to 3 years, with the Director of Infrastructure, Graham Tattersall commenting that there “was not a lot of room for variation” and that they had “the balance about right”. 

For the decisions which will go on to the next meeting of Council on 25^th November 2026, there were two additional items (apart from the Community Safety and Crime Prevention Plan 2027-2031discussed above). 

Item SGSC2611-4 CHILD SAFE ORGANISATION POLICYis a comprehensive document developed in “response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, the City of Fremantle has progressed a Child Safe Organisation Project to strengthen child safety and wellbeing across its services, facilities, programs and community spaces.” Cr Mofflin had an amendment for the item, which focussed on ensuring targets set are more fully met, and encouraging greater rigour and accountability within the system. The amended motion was unanimously approved.

And the final Item SGSC2611-6 ADOPTION OF COUNCIL AND COMMITTEE SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS 2027 was given some light relief by the Mayor, who did his best to extend the meeting beyond 6.30pm. While encouraging the public to come to the meetings of Council, he stated “this is the chamber where … we have our discussions and our debates and we make our votes public.… we’re a very transparent local government and it takes a lot of work to be as transparent as we are”.

Signed off at 6.27pm. Goodnight Freo

*By Jenny Archibald

~ For earlier RADM reports look here.

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