Car theft is more likely to be acted on than any other kind of theft, in my experience, but it still has to be convenient for them.
One time my car was stolen, I knew it had only just happened so they were certainly still driving it near my home, and the police just said sorry, we'll let you know if it turns up somewhere. I called back a few minutes later when I remembered that it's on a car share program so I can track the location via GPS - that got them interested, and I stayed on the phone giving updates while it took them only 20 minutes to make an arrest.
The same car got stolen a couple of years later, when I wasn't able to track it live. I located it myself, and they just turned up to do a few minutes of forensics then left.
They're definitely understaffed. When I went to the station to do a report there was only one constable in the building, even though it was a time of day/week when they're extra busy.
Ah, Summernats. I used to work at a servo in Canberra. That time of year was nuts.
Usually I was the only staff on site, but we'd have four staff on for nats. One would basically be handling the car wash exclusively. Two would be constantly restocking food and drinks. We'd get a shipping container of extra stock dropped off to keep up.
The bus home would have to go through a cloud of tyre smoke, and half the passengers would get off at the north side brothels and strip joints.
I never actually went to the festival itself, but I feel like I got most of the experience.