Page 451 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 1990
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Canberra was becoming a less safe, or less pleasant place to live in than it was a few years ago.
The terms of reference also asked the committee to look at public behaviour in and around shopping centres, bus interchanges and areas of public entertainment. The committee drew the conclusion that at present there are no significant behaviour problems around bus interchanges or shopping centres. One of the major problem areas was the Woden interchange. These problems have been corrected through policing and renovations to the area.
The committee drew the conclusion that at present there are no significant behaviour problems around bus interchanges and shopping centres, although some people felt that skateboards pose some hazards for the elderly around shopping centres. Some shopkeepers found the persistent noise of skateboarding wearing. In this regard the committee recommended that the ACT Administration give priority to providing additional skateboard ramps in the overall planning of recreation facilities within the ACT.
There appears to be more of a problem with public behaviour in the areas of public entertainment and this relates particularly, as my other colleagues have said, to the abuse of alcohol. Indeed, the principal problem with public behaviour in the ACT appears just to be that. The committee was told that some of the public events such as the Canberra Festival and Food and Wine Frolic, which were designed as family occasions, are being marred by the behaviour of groups of people who use them as opportunities to consume large amounts of alcohol and who become offensive and belligerent.
Some of the late night clubs and taverns are becoming associated with offensive behaviour and vandalism, causing distress to local shoppers as well as the general public. As a result of the evidence that excessive consumption of alcohol is apparently beginning to pose problems in the ACT, the committee has made some recommendations on liquor advertising and regulation. But as the chairperson, Bill Wood, says in his introduction:
... how difficult it is to make an impact on deeply rooted traditions in Australia that excessive use of alcohol and the consequences of that use are acceptable.
Some of the submissions to the committee assumed that public behaviour of young people would be the main focus of the inquiry. The committee found little evidence that the behaviour of young people caused undue problems. Obviously, the young people like to socialise in public, but they are too young to frequent licensed premises where adults can congregate and socialise. Also they have little money and find bus interchanges and shopping centres logical and cheap places to meet. I think that this is one area where the Government really has to look at the needs of the young people in the ACT.
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