Page 677 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 July 1989
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Mr Collaery has already foreshadowed that the short-term solution could well be to have a sunset clause, recognising it for what it is - a short-term solution. But are we to say, as Mr Humphries put it, to a victim of crime, "Sorry. Pity about that, but feel sorry for the person who has this particular social problem"?
There are two solutions. We have to take some action as quickly as possible to resolve the street crime problem, then try to work out what is causing it in the long term and come up with a solution. In that respect, I agree wholeheartedly with the Chief Minister that the standing committee and the proposals that she is to put to that standing committee could well be important.
With reference to standing orders, first of all, what we are dealing with here is a criminal matter, and it highlights the need for a standing committee that looks at legal matters, ordinances and so forth. We do not have a standing committee like that. If we did, no doubt this would be referred not to a select committee but to that standing committee.
With reference to the social problems, these are not mutually exclusive. We can take a short-term solution and also look at the long-term solution. The whole gist of what the Labor Party is putting forward is that we cannot do both. Of course we can do both, and that is what we should be doing. We need to be looking in the long term at building a better relationship - perhaps providing more police on the street and perhaps providing ways in which the police can build a relationship with these young people.
We need to be looking to ensure that the unemployment situation does not exacerbate the problems of youth. Of course we need to look at those things; of course they are important; and of course we feel that there is some risk in the way we deal with the oppressed, which is what the young people are becoming; but people who have been victims of street crime are, in a much more significant way, oppressed as well.
Let us use this to see whether we can find, in relation to this Bill, a short-term solution that will provide a situation where the police are not frustrated by the sort of action that society demands of them. They are the ones who are caught in the middle. On the one hand, police are called into a situation by people who feel that they have the right to be protected; on the other hand, we are saying to them, "Sorry, you cannot do anything".
They are caught in the middle, and it is particularly unfair on them. Let us not leave them caught in the middle while we think about the long-term solution. Let us take some action. Let us refer this Bill to that select committee and let us debate it when it is much closer to a
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