By BEN CAMERON
THE KOOWEERUP Township Committee is irate with a News Limited article which, they believe, has misrepresented the town.
The article, printed last Monday, revealed Kooweerup to be a Top Five regional hotspot for homicide, according to crime data from Victoria Police over the past four years to June, with five incidents, second behind Inglewood with seven.
However, committee member Ray Brown said the article was extremely misleading and provided a “tainted image” of the town.
“Like the average person, I guess I took that to mean murders, but I was wrong,” he said.
“After contacting the reporter who wrote the story, he informed me that there were a host of incidents on the police data base, bracketed as homicide.
“It would have been good to have that clarification in the actual story.”
Police data shows homicide can also include culpable driving causing death, driving at dangerous speed causing death, driving in a manner dangerous causing death, accident – failing to assist -death, accident – failing to stop – death, survivor suicide pact, and aiding and abetting suicide.
Mr Brown felt the article had not told the whole story.
“I informed him (the reporter) that to report in that manner without explanation gives our town a tainted image,” he said.
“I think that our town has been tainted unfairly and been a victim of definition.”
A Police Media spokesperson said incidents were linked to location, not the residence of the offender.
It comes after the town received an apology following comments made by Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs in a News Limited article, who defended a $60,000 cocktail party for an awards function on the Sydney waterfront.
“We don’t want to be in a village hall in Kooweerup just because we haven’t got a lot of money,” she said.
