Page 454 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 1990
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say they should be closed at 2.00 am; they suggested between the hours of 4.00 am and 10.00 am. Dr Kinloch already mentioned that he and I believe that restrictions could well be placed between the hours of 4.00 am and 8.00 am to give a chance to shoppers to be able to wend their way through these shopping centres without being accosted and having difficulties with drunks.
It was suggested in our report that the closing of premises at 4.00 am would cause people to funnel out at the one time and, indeed, it would. I suggest that that is a great benefit. I was a police officer in Sydney when we used to have 10.00 pm closing - that must have been a long time ago! We would go around to a few hotels - perhaps start at 9.30 pm and call in and see who was there. We would ask the licensee whether anybody was causing problems. He might say, "No, we've just got a few of the regulars". We would then go on to another place where the licensee might say, "Yes, there are some people whom it would be worthwhile watching". So, we might stay until 10.00 pm. The bartender would say, at 9.50 pm, "Last drinks, fellas" and they would all funnel out at 10 o'clock.
There were not many pubs one needed to look after. Police could be there. That would ensure that when people were leaving premises you would not have the difficulty that some people have of their windows being fairly regularly kicked in or broken. One gentleman so far has lost 16 plate glass windows in a shop in Canberra in the last few years. He also is rather concerned about the late night Friday shopping where some people coming out of taverns cause problems with shoppers. This is something we certainly need to address and the report notes that the Social Policy Committee will look at this point of licensing hours in the future.
We looked at the subject of youth quite often. We looked at youth homelessness and I think it worthwhile flagging a couple of points. It is fairly easy for young people to leave home these days. Perhaps at one time it was not so. There are other places to which they can go; there are various welfare agencies that will help youths in obtaining accommodation. Indeed, the dole also gives them the money to do that. I feel that, wherever possible, attention should be placed on youths remaining in the home. Where counselling is done with young people, as it often is, it is usually done without the parents. I suggest that the problem here is that whenever you hear from one side in a dispute, you tend to get the viewpoint from only one side. I would recommend that all counselling include the parents and the children.
Bill Wood mentioned that early one morning he and I went around various places in Canberra to have a look at whether there were major problems. Well, the truth of the matter is, certainly on the morning that we went out, that our major problem was in staying awake because we were out there until after four o'clock.
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