Feeling safe must be the standard

A resident told me they don't shop in Glenorchy anymore. They get in the car, drive over the Tasman Bridge to Rosny for all their banking and shopping.

Not because it's cheaper, not because it's closer or more convenient, but because they don't feel safe in their own city.

That's unacceptable. We don't fix it by putting our heads in the sand and our fingers in our ears. By the numbers we're a safe city, more police activity and more attention on our centres than we've had in years. But being safe and feeling safe are two different things.

People aren't looking at the stats, they're looking at the empty shopfronts, the graffiti nobody has cleaned, the stealing that mostly goes unreported, the violence, small or otherwise.

Telling people that this isn't real doesn't make people feel safer, it makes it worse.

Feeling safe starts with being believed. If you don't feel safe here, you're not imagining it, you're not being precious and you don't need to apologise for it.

Feeling safe is having lighting on the paths people use, cameras where they count, graffiti gone in days not months, trolleys off the footpath. Working with police and telling other levels of government what our community is seeing and feeling.

Feeling safe is backing the people behind the counter. That's why I made a personal submission to the State Government for Workplace Protection Orders, our traders keep showing up for us, we should be showing up for them.

Feeling safe is having activity. Full shopfronts, busy footpaths, coffee shops humming, just like at Cooper Espresso, a busy street is a safe street. This matters more than we think.

Everyone should be able to do their shopping in Moonah, Claremont, Glenorchy, everywhere and feel safe and good about it.

Until everyone can, none of us should be satisfied.

Glenorchy First.