Page 2776 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 1991
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I do not believe that that committee did find the appropriate solutions and I think that is very sad. I think the committees of this Assembly do a great deal of very good work; but I think that this particular report from the Standing Committee on Social Policy, the public behaviour inquiry, focused, as it had to, because of its limited resources, particularly on alcohol. In the preface to that report Mr Wood, as the chairperson, stated:
Almost universally, where there are problems, they can be attributed to the consequences of the abuse of alcohol. Accordingly, the Committee's attention has substantially focused on the role that alcohol plays in promoting undesirable behaviours and means by which the problem may be diminished.
It seems to me, Mr Speaker, that in focusing that way, as I can understand the committee chose to do, they were not able to fulfil the role that I had hoped they would be able to, when I spoke on and supported the move-on powers last time in order to fill this gap.
I also was drawn to some other comments made by Mr Wood in the preface of that document. He wrote:
By any standard Canberra is a safe city. The Committee accepts this view which was clearly expressed to it.
Then he went on to say:
That is not to deny that there is a measure of violence in Canberra and the Committee acknowledges that the community must take every measure to prevent violence and unacceptable behaviours and the conditions which contribute to them.
Where we have not yet managed to come to grips with our responsibilities is finding those measures that are necessary to deal with the conditions that contribute to children acting in this way. I have heard Mr Stevenson on many occasions, for example, speaking in this Assembly on X-rated movies, non-violent erotica. Yet I have very rarely heard him speak on violence and children being exposed to violence. No doubt he does occasionally, but it certainly does not get the emphasis that non-violent erotica gets.
It seems to me that our children are exposed to violence on many occasions and they seem to believe that in some ways violence is okay. It is certainly okay and condoned in terms of war. It is certainly okay and condoned in terms of self-defence and a whole series of other things, so that people begin to feel that it is an acceptable part of behaviour.
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