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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 (Hansard) 16 May) . . Page.. 1401 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

programs for parental management to help parents deal with aggressive behaviour in children; and establishing a telephone hotline for parents to call for support and advice. Dr Duncan Chappell, now Professor Chappell, added that among those strategies adopted that have been successful are the marketing of low-alcohol beer, more responsible retailing of alcohol, and moves to reduce violence in sport.

Until we come to grips with the underlying socialisation of violent behaviour, as well as taking guns out of homes, many more women and children will be slaughtered in their own homes or outside courthouses, as witnessed recently. I understand that Ms Tucker will be moving to self-refer the issue of the further steps to be taken in terms of removing guns from homes, and I think her Social Policy Committee will have an important challenge to see what we can achieve in Canberra once we have managed to achieve the national agreement that was made by those Ministers. It is important that that agreement be fulfilled first.

We have made a choice in Australia not to follow the United States on a mindless path of neglect of the safety of our people in this country by taking the step to remove from our society automatic and semiautomatic weapons; but we are following the path of the United States when it comes to the killings in our homes with rifles. The domestic violence reports from the US read like reports from a war zone. Between 1967 and 1973, 39,000 American soldiers were killed in the Vietnam War. During the same period, over 17,500 women and children were killed by their violent fathers and partners. As a result of popular outcry, the war in Vietnam was halted. The war against women and children continues, it seems, not only in America but also in Australia. Many of the women killed in Australia have domestic violence protection orders. Unfortunately, the ACT has not a proud record of arresting order offenders. According to the Domestic Violence Crisis Service, the ACT can boast the highest percentage - 35.6 per cent - of "no action taken" by police in Australia. The next highest is Tasmania, with a 28.7 per cent rate of "no arrest" for order offenders.

We cannot sit back complacently and say that we have solved the problem by taking away automatic weapons or by saying that it could not happen in Australia. In Australia between 1989 and 1990 and between 1992 and 1993, 532 women were killed, with just under 50 per cent killed in domestic violence incidents. Of those 260 women, one-third, or 86, were killed by firearms. At this stage I do not have the figure for how many children were killed in this period by firearms, but I suspect that it is a figure we would find alarming. I think we would find even one person alarming under those circumstances.

The people of Australia have been saying loud and clear since Port Arthur that they do not want this to happen again, and they are prepared for parliamentarians to take strong action on the issue. The decision last Friday showed Australia what political will can achieve when our motivation is high. I urge everyone to make plans at this time to have a good, hard look at the problem of violence in our community and to come up with real action such as that agreed at the Justice Ministers meeting. Indeed, I look forward next week to the Social Policy Committee report on violence in our schools. The time will come very shortly, I am sure, when we will find a way to get guns out of homes. We need to provide for ways of doing that and to take the community with us. We need to educate our young on how to resolve conflict in non-violent ways.

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