Page 3451 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 25 November 1992
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entertainment that is not integrated into community life but externalised as businesses rather than treated as social activities should be seriously examined. We need to deal with preventive measures in the context of education, social welfare and health, because the results of violence have cost implications for all of those functions.
Madam Speaker, if we as a community want to be confident that our children will come home from nightclubs, if we want an assurance that we can go to the shops and entertainment facilities in Civic Centre ourselves and return to our homes unmolested, then strong action is needed. Strong action is in fact demanded. The Government cannot delay in acting on this issue. If they do, the wrong signals will be sent to those who are given the task of enforcing the law on the streets; a wrong impression will be conveyed to our magistrates and our court officers; and, worse, the wrong message will be sent to the people who bring violence and danger to our public places.
Madam Speaker, at the 1992 Walter Burley Griffin Lecture, our Chief Minister said:
The ACT Government also has a long-term vision for Canberra. It is a vision based on a commitment to see that our children and the others who will live here have a secure social, economic and environmental future.
That is what I am talking about. They are fine words coming from the Chief Minister. She has a duty to provide that secure economic and social future that she spoke of. The Government has the responsibility of ensuring the security of its citizens. That is where I started. This Government must show by action rather than empty words that it accepts that responsibility. In doing so, it must address the underlying causes of violence with as much vigour as it attacks the results of that violence.
Madam Speaker, to come back to the document that the Chief Minister tabled today - the national strategy on violence against women - we cannot rely on initiatives coming from the Commonwealth and elsewhere. We as a community, this Assembly as an elected body and this Government as an elected government have a responsibility to take our own initiatives rather than waiting for somebody else to do it. I think the time is almost too late. The Government must act now.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (3.30): I thank Mr Kaine for his MPI today. It is truly, as he said in his opening remarks, a matter of public importance. One of the prime responsibilities of government is, of course, to provide a secure environment. The safety and security of our town centre, Civic Centre, is a matter of concern for all of us. I would echo Mr Kaine's concluding remark that we as a community have a responsibility to work together on this problem. There has been a tendency in Australia for too many years to assume that crime is a police problem, that police can solve it and that all we need to do is to leave it to the police and the matters will be sorted out. That is unfortunately not the case.
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