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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (27 March) . . Page.. 686 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

It was obviously happening in other places. In the short time I have had to look at this, there is evidence in studies that have been done in other countries and elsewhere in Australia that there are concerns. In two cities in America - I think it is Chicago and Los Angeles - one has restricted trading and one does not. The one with the restricted trading is more violent. I have not had time to do a thorough research search here, and that is what I want to see.

The question of bouncers is another issue. Consistently in all the studies that I have been able to see accessed, there is grave concern about the connection between bouncers and crowd controllers and violent incidents. I am very pleased to see the Government working on this issue. The Community Law Reform Committee report on the issue was very good, and everyone seems to be happy with the process that is happening there. Once again, however, if we are going to talk about the incidence of violence in Civic, we have isolated this particular issue, which is only now starting to be dealt with. Why not work out how much of an impact that is going to have on the problem of violence in Civic? That is something that is going in parallel and that needs to be given a chance. Then we can identify the problem that is left.

Talking to the people at the Institute of Criminology, they were saying that they could see the reason for having, if you like, this two-stage approach, so that we have the opportunity to look at information in this place. We need to have a commitment from this Government that they are going to finance a review from the Institute of Criminology, or whoever else they choose to use who has expertise in the area, to look at collecting all the information, so that a report is presented to the Assembly. We will be asking that this process gets slowed down so that we can have a reasonable chance of making a decision that is well informed.

The question of violence in society generally is much broader than the few people who get drunk and punch each other in Civic. This is about violence throughout the community, and, when we try to attack this problem by what could be seen to be playing with people's lives, it is saying, "We will have a trial and, if we see that serious assault, sexual assault, domestic violence, does increase, then we will say that this trial was not a success". But that is very offensive. They are real human beings at the bottom of that idea and they are going to suffer, and I do not feel that it is responsible for us to take on the idea of a trial in that manner. I am very disappointed with the Liberal Party's response. All I have had is, "We have always stood for a trial because we think it would be interesting and we do not know that it would be a problem". I repeat that I do not think they have done the work, and that is what we are asking for. I am happy to look at it. When we get the informed report, the information, we can assess whether we want to take that sort of risk with the people of this city and this region, whom we represent.

Once again I say that it is about women's issues particularly; it is about domestic violence. We already have another report, which I think is going to be discussed today, where Mrs Carnell acknowledged that she agrees with the task force that it is a national health issue. Domestic violence is of huge concern. We cannot on the one hand say that, and on the other hand go ahead with this sort of process, which is not appropriate.

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