Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\nIn South Australia, the police commissioner Grant Stevens, even suggested that officers might stop investigating \u201cdrive-offs\u201d at service stations, unless retailers installed prepaid pumps. It came amid an increase in petrol thefts this month, including from first-time offenders, Stevens said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis takes police away from other responsibilities that we could be attending to, so we are calling on the retail fuel industry to take positive steps to prevent this virtually overnight by implementing prepaid, which is something they have within their capacity to do,\u201d the police commissioner told the ABC.<\/p>\n
NSW police\u2019s rural crime prevention team is warning the public of possible fuel thefts as they appeal for information as part of an investigation in the state\u2019s west. Photograph: NSW police\/Facebook<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seen reports of this type of crime for years, or probably decades, and I know that I have been agitating for years to see something more proactive from the industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you were foolish enough to leave your TV out the front of your house every single day, and have it stolen, there would come a point in time where we\u2019d say: \u2018we\u2019re not taking a report from you for that\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
His comments were swiftly rebuked by industry groups, who said prepaid pumps could cost $5,000 each, a cost that would be passed on to consumers.<\/p>\n
In a statement, SA police said there had been 221 fuel theft offences reported in the week ending 15 March, 59 more than the previous week. Ninety seven of these involved first-time offenders.<\/p>\n
The Western Australian police commissioner, Col Blanch, this week said he was expecting an increase in fuel theft driven by \u201cfear of the unknown\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do see fuel theft outside of times like this, but certainly the motivator for more fuel theft now will be \u2026 that anxiety and that fear of the unknown, of what\u2019s going forward and the availability of fuel,\u201d Blanch told ABC radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what people would really be doing is just stealing it from someone else who is in the exact same circumstance as you, has the same fears, the same anxiety, has the same cost pressures, so I\u2019m not sure that contributes to a better outcome if you steal someone\u2019s fuel.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can get charged for it, it can ruin your life, you can go to prison, all of those things can happen \u2026 you might say \u2018but you know, I needed the fuel because I thought I couldn\u2019t buy any in the future\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s not going to be a reason that you can avoid court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police patrols have increased in the state\u2019s wheat belt region to deter would-be thieves.<\/p>\n
Aside from the theft at Huntley, NSW police are also investigating the theft of about 500 litres of diesel from a grain storage facility in Nyngan, which was reported on 11 March.<\/p>\n
Acting Det Insp Andrew Maclean last week warned NSW farmers to expect an increase in fuel thefts.<\/p>\n
\u201cLandholders are asked to remain vigilant around their on-farm fuel storage and police encourage installing surveillance cameras, securing bowser handles with padlocks, and keeping detailed records of all fuel usage,\u201d Maclean said.<\/p>\n
Police in NSW, Victoria and Queensland were unable to provide statistics on the number of recent thefts, but all noted they were remaining vigilant, including in regional areas.<\/p>\n
However, Tasmanian police said there was no pattern emerging of increased fuel theft; there were 44 reported cases in the past six weeks, but the most cases \u2013 11 \u2013 were reported in the week before the conflict started.<\/p>\n
ACT policing said it had not noted an increase in fuel thefts, with only six reported this year, and no cases of siphoning, though a spokesperson noted such offences were under-reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rusty green fuel trailer hardly looks like it is worth stealing, but some time before 1 March…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-556237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}