KAP leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter says the North West is engulfed in "car crime chaos" which is spiralling out of control.
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Mr Katter said last week's state budget saw no new methods to combat youth crime across Queensland as Mount Isa suffers "a staggering amounts of car thefts".
Queensland Police did not respond to the North West Star in time for deadline but on Friday acting Mount Isa police district officer Jason Smith told the ABC 12 vehicles had been stolen and 10 arrested and admitted there had been a spike in offences.
Last weekend five youth offenders were arrested and charged with a total of 19 offences in relations to the theft of six vehicles, some stolen from private businesses, others from a local caravan park.
Mr Katter said around 20,000 people in lived in Mount Isa and he estimated one in 280 people has had a vehicle stolen in these recent months.
"In a rural city the size of Mount Isa, people living there expect the 'small town' lifestyle," Mr Katter said.
"How we have gotten to the point that your car is more than twice as likely to be stolen in a rural town, the size of Mount Isa, than it is in Brisbane is beyond me?
"If this doesn't signal the alarm bells on the regional youth crime crisis, then I don't know what will."
Mr Katter said the Palaszczuk Labor Government was in denial over the issue.
"People should not have to accept that this is the way of life now - we should not have to settle for these statistics no matter where we live," he said.
"We've got our police force out there, endangering their own lives and doing everything they can to have these criminals locked up, only for them to be let out with a slap on the wrist at most, committing again in the blink of an eye.
"We need a circuit-breaker that cuts at the heart of the cultural and social issues driving these trends - at the KAP, an alternative sentencing model for recidivist youth offenders is part of our solution."
The KAP had lobbied for the inclusion of a $15 million pool of funding to trial Relocation Sentencing in Queensland which would extract sentenced youths from crime-heavy hotspots and relocates them to a remote facility to rehabilitate, reform and learn valuable life and work skills.
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Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
