Page 6004 - Week 18 - Thursday, 12 December 1991
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do as we do. We should modify our own behaviour. That is teaching children the wrong way. As I mentioned earlier, children learn constantly. They learn from what we do, not very often from what we say they should do. They see that as hypocritical.
Children in the past have been protected by the family unit. The family unit has come under tremendous pressure. I think an earlier speaker said something about both parents choosing to work. There are a lot of situations where both parents do not choose to work but because of economic pressures they are both forced to work. That is just two jobs. What about the number of people who are working in two and more jobs, both people in a family? How does that allow mum to stay home and look after the kids, if they want her to, and to bring them up as they so choose?
So, there are many major areas, and I have spoken about a dozen, that could well be addressed to handle the prevention of behavioural disturbances in young people. Unfortunately, not one recommendation of our inquiry handled any of them directly. I think we have been placing bandaids at the bottom of a cliff instead of a safety net at the top.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.55): I want to congratulate the committee on what seems to me, at a quick look, to be a very sensible and practical report that will accommodate the range of problems that exist. I want to indicate that both Mr Connolly and I will be requiring our respective departments to have a very careful look at it because it is our departments that are most involved.
Ms Maher: And Health.
MR WOOD: Yes, I have no doubt that they will too. The good proposals made in that, bearing in mind always the cost factors, I guess, will be very carefully considered.
MR DUBY (11.55): I feel compelled to rise after listening to Mr Stevenson's hocus-pocus and mumbo jumbo that he went on with when he was addressing the report. He has put out a dissenting report and I think the record of Hansard should show that he has also listed additional further reading. Amongst the things that he discussed were rights and not responsibilities.
I think it is my responsibility to let the record show what Mr Stevenson's recommended further reading includes. Remember that this is a report on behavioural disturbance amongst young people. Mr Stevenson has recommended that we read The Story of the Commonwealth Bank, published by Veridas Publishing, which of course is the publishing arm of the Australian League of Rights; Hand Over Our Loot, by Mr Len Clampett, whom we have all heard of before; and finally, Your Will Be Done, by Chresby and published by ACEC, which I assume is the Australian Citizens Electoral Council.
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