Nationals Minister Grant Tann has called for the reinstatement of the Rural Crime Investigations Unit after a recent spate of stock thefts in rural South Australia.

‘Why do we have Rural Crime Investigation Units in some states and not others?’ he asks. ‘Western Australia had an active squad for some time until the Labor Government decided it was a good idea to disband it. Queensland, on the other hand, has many squads that operate all across the state.’

In recent years only nine people have been charged with stock stealing offences. However, this is not due to a downturn in theft, because there has been over two million dollars’ worth of stock reported stolen in the past twelve months. It is because of the lack of manpower and dedicated squads investigating these crimes.

South Australia is not the only state calling for a rural crime unit to be reinstated, Western Australia echoes the call.

Responsibility for investigating rural crime fell to the Department of Agriculture after the stock squad was disbanded. However, Department of Agriculture employees do not have the authority or the skills to undertake detective work such as searching farms and conducting forensic investigations.

At the moment, local police detectives in the town closest to where the crime has occurred are investigating stock thefts. As skilled as these detectives may be, they are unlikely to have the same level of specialised skill and experience as the stock squad detectives. The detectives within any rural crime unit have to be able to ride motorbikes and horses, camp out and be stockmen. These detectives are a different breed altogether.

On 21 May 2018 there was a call by SA sheep producers to reinstate the Rural Crime Investigations Unit after sixty thousand dollars’ worth of sheep were stolen from a property near Clare in the state’s mid-north.

According to a police source, rural theft is no longer an opportunistic crime. Given the increasing numbers of sheep being stolen (such as the 1000 merino-cross ewes taken in December 2018 from a NSW property), the perpetrators clearly need to be highly organised. Thefts like this take a lot of planning.

There are sophisticated ways of casing farms—using drones, for example. And with the increasing number of animal activists coming onto or camping just outside private properties and causing mischief, farmers need to be able to call in professionals when needed.

Each theft has an impact on a farmer’s bottom line. Then there is the additional expense of installing security equipment, not to mention locks and chains on gates and fences.

‘I believe the police minister must act quickly and reinstate this specialised force before farmers are sent bankrupt,’ said Minister Tann.

Zara sat back and reread her work. Grant Tann was being a little overdramatic with that last comment, but he’d said it and the quote was worth using.