Page 4789 - Week 16 - Monday, 25 November 1991
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comments to a report perhaps it is a better idea to get stuck right into it and put them all in there. Of course, in the next Social Policy Committee inquiry I was on - fluoride - I did just that. The committee wrote 120 pages and I put in 177.
Mr Berry: You photocopied 177 pages.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Berry shows what I have known all along - that he did not read the report. He just said that I photocopied 177 pages. That confirms absolutely and totally what I said in this parliament - that he had not read the report. If he had, he would know that they were not photocopied.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Relevance, please, Mr Stevenson.
MR STEVENSON: One of the marvellous advantages of this Bill is that it will allow prescribed places to be nominated. Commonwealth Park, when there are celebrations there, starts off wonderfully. Later on during those events many people become inebriated, drunk - "intoxicated" is sometimes not the right word; it does not go far enough. There are many times when people who are inebriated cause problems with family groups, and this causes some family groups not to want to go to these events.
I think it makes eminent sense to separate areas at this type of function, to be able to say to family groups, "Everywhere west of the streets or the pathways, you can sit with your family and you will not be bothered by other people drinking". That fact will keep the vast majority of the drinkers away because they have not the slightest concern about going anywhere where they cannot drink, and drink a lot.
I agree with the amendments Mr Stefaniak has suggested. They make the Bill far more sensible. Indeed, it is something this Assembly will be able to do towards handling the many problems caused by alcohol in the ACT, rather than just talking about it.
MR HUMPHRIES (12.14): I want to put on the record my support for Mr Stefaniak's Bill. With some amendments I believe that it is a responsible and responsive piece of legislation. I mean by "responsive" that it is an item of law which very directly reflects the views of many people in the ACT. I also have had the same concerns, the same complaints, the same fears, put to me about behaviour in our bus interchanges and other places. I do not treat them as the rantings of the lunatic fringe, as the views of extremists. The people who have spoken to me about these sorts of things are far from extremist in their attitude. In fact, they are often elderly people, and I do not think there are too many elderly extremists around Canberra - at least, not on this issue.
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