Local nurse rallies community to fight back

NURSE Janine Morris has rallied for the Chinchilla community to unite at a town meeting next week to come up with a plan to fight back against the criminals targeting the town.

For the first time in the 30 years Ms Morris has lived in Chinchilla, her house was broken into on Helena St sometime overnight between February 17 and February 18.

The criminals took off with two of her cars - a Mazda CX-5 and her treasured Mazda RX8 Sedan.

It was the final straw for Ms Morris, after witnessing a wave of crime and car theft continuously hit the Chinchilla community and called Callide MP Colin Boyce to hold a meeting.

She intends to launch a petition to call for changes to legislation to give repeat offenders harsher penalties.

"What I'm concern about is after I spoke to the police about it, they said their hands are tied, so legislation has to change and that's from a federal point of view," Ms Morris said.

"If you get enough push from people in every town and we get a petition going, they are going to have to look at this problem."

Queensland Crime Statistics show in January this year nine houses were broken into, four cars were stolen, and 26 theft offences were recorded - up from seven theft offences in January 2019.

Ms Morris said she is determined to rally the community together to fight back against the criminals who are targeting and violating hardworking families.

"I have worked extremely hard for this place and my belongings, I've never given up and I'm still not giving up," she said.

"I had a down moment but I'm a tough old clock and what I want to do now is campaign for people's safety because it's a bloody joke."

Ms Morris said one the glaring problems was local police need more funding to increase their presence on the streets.

"Why isn't the government paying the police to patrol the streets at night? That's why the crime is here because they are not patrolling," she said.

"We are a crime capital so why haven't they allowed more police to patrol, we work 24/7 and three shifts a day as nurses so why can't they?

"The government needs to pull their finger out.

"We need the police, it isn't about the police, it's about the crime level and it's there because the system and legislation is flawed, and what the police can do is flawed."

The town meeting (separate from the neighbourhood watch meeting being held tonight) will be at the RSL on Monday, March 2, at 6.30pm.

The cars stolen from Ms Morris home were found on Wednesday, February 19, the CX-5 in Chinchilla on the corner of Oak and Scouller St and the RX8 was found over 340km away in Urraween.

A Queensland Police Service spokesman said no one has been charged and investigations are continuing.