Page 1896 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 16 June 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Moore: Are you sure?
MR DE DOMENICO: Yes, I am positive. If you go and talk to the shopping people there, they might tell you this.
Mr Moore: That is their perspective.
MR DE DOMENICO: No, not their perspective at all, Mr Moore. There have also been some shoppers knocked over. As Mrs Carnell says, perhaps no bones have been smashed and there is no blood; but it is very frightening, especially if you are an elderly person. We have to talk also about their individual rights and freedom. We should not abandon, I am sure Mr Moore would agree, the rights and freedoms of the older people in that community as well. It is not all about getting stuck into the young people. That is point No. 1.
Mr Moore and Mr Berry were asking about particular problems. There is one, Mr Berry. Perhaps you would like to go out to Belconnen and have a word to some of those shopkeepers there. In your travels, Mr Berry, you might want to go and talk to some of the shopkeepers in Garema Place as well. Quite rightly, Mr Connolly's department spends a lot of money and time in making sure that those areas look attractive. They are designated shopping areas where people come from all sorts of places, and a lot of tourists also come into those areas to shop and to do things associated with the restaurant and other facilities that are provided. That is fantastic; but they do not expect to be knocked over or pushed aside or whatever by any person, whether young or old, on a skateboard or anything else. If we use a logical argument, driving cars fast down a road was a very popular thing in Melbourne in my youth, but that does not mean that we should allow cars into Garema Place, and that if we do not allow cars into Garema Place we are being insensitive to young people who want to drive fast up and down the streets.
As Mrs Carnell and Mr Humphries have said, and I am sure that Mr Cornwell also will say it, we have to see a balance in these things. Quite recently I was privileged to be in Queensland with an Assembly committee, where we saw the magnificent facilities in the Brisbane mall. The first question Ms Szuty and I asked the people of the Brisbane City Council was: Do you allow skateboard riders in the mall?
Mr Cornwell: What did they say?
MR DE DOMENICO: The answer was, obviously, "No, we do not, because the mall has been designed and shaped and landscaped beautifully as a shopping facility. We expect people from all over the place to come there and shop, and the shopkeepers, accordingly, take a lot of pride in the way they present their windows and that sort of thing. The last thing we want is people to be knocked over while shopping, by someone riding a skateboard. Of course, we provide quite good facilities further down the street". That is a wonderful attitude to have. That is what the Liberal Party's Bill is all about.
Mr Moore made some comments about the elimination of fun. The comments were quite bizarre.
Mrs Carnell: Zooming old ladies down.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .