Page 4711 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 28 November 1990
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MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, I withdraw any imputation on my good colleague and the very likeable Mr Stefaniak.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Moore.
MR MOORE: The very big Mr Stefaniak - that is because I am terrified of him. I think that one of the things that have established their position is Mr Stefaniak's coming out in support of the notion of a curfew. He reacted this way when the people of Port Augusta in South Australia voted overwhelmingly to support a curfew in that town.
Mr Stefaniak: I have never said that I support a curfew, Michael.
MR MOORE: I wonder whether Mr Stefaniak has been to Port Augusta and whether he is aware of the sorts of problems that exist in that town and just how far removed the problems of Port Augusta are from those of Canberra. Having been through Port Augusta on innumerable occasions, particularly during the three years when I lived in a town near Port Augusta, and having visited it on a number of occasions when my brother lived there, I think it is worth pointing out that the sorts of powers that this Alliance Government talks about and the sorts of things that apply in Port Augusta are worlds apart.
Should we in Canberra be approaching something like Port Augusta, I think many of us would consider that the balance about which I talked in my introduction - the balance between the damage on the one hand and what it achieves on the other hand - may well bring us to support something like that. But that is simply not the case in Canberra, except in some isolated circumstances.
The damage is to do with the relationship between young people and the police, and the emphasis that we in this house, in a bipartisan way, have pushed on community policing. I believe that it is a very positive thing that, to the best of my knowledge, all members of this house support the notion of developing our community policing and, certainly verbally, they also support the notion of extending that towards crime prevention, although the Government used its numbers to prevent a committee being established on that issue - crime prevention and the police.
Mr Collaery earlier also referred to the notion of a bipartisan approach to community policing in the transitional period. That is absolute nonsense, coming from Mr Collaery. This side of the house has asked again and again for some input into that and an opening of that process.
So, there is not a bipartisan approach, except from Mr Collaery's point of view, which means that he makes a decision and wants the others to agree. That concept of a
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