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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1065 ..

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister): Mr Speaker, for the information of members, I present the ministerial travel report for 1 January 1997 to 31 March 1997.

Pursuant to section 12 of the Remuneration Act 1995, I also present Determination No. 13, including statement, for part-time holders of public office and Statements Nos 14 to 17 for chief executives and executives of the ACT Public Service, the Electoral Commissioner, the Auditor-General and the Director of the CIT.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (3.48): Mr Speaker, for the information of members, I present the Government's response to the ACT Community Safety Committee's final report entitled "The Crime and Safety Concerns of Older Persons in the ACT", which was presented to the Assembly on 11 December 1996, and I move:

That the Assembly takes note of the paper.

The Government released its three-year forward plan for older people in the ACT in 1995. An integral part of that plan focused on the safety and security needs of older people. Partly in response to our commitment to older people enunciated in that three-year plan, I asked the ACT Community Safety Committee to inquire into the crime and safety concerns of older people in the ACT. A number of references the committee had considered related to younger people, and I felt it was time to focus on the concerns of older people.

I had also been aware of concerns expressed by some commentators that many older people became prisoners of fear, isolated themselves in their homes and did not venture out to participate in normal social activities. In giving the reference to the committee, I was particularly interested to learn about the levels of the fear of crime experienced by older people in the ACT and to learn about the actual levels of victimisation among older people. The report indicates that in the ACT older people as a group are the least victimised across most crime categories. The evidence with respect to the crime fears expressed by older people is equivocal. Some research indicates that older people are more likely to be fearful of crime, while other research suggests that older people's fears are no more intense than those expressed by the population as a whole. On some measures, older people's concerns are lower than those of the rest of the community.

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