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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1862 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

So, the statistic that says that they do not get into trouble more, or are not the victims of crime, is one that is a little dubious. If we are to get into a statistical review, we ought to look at some means of weighting those statistics to acknowledge that older people are at home more, they are not out as much, and they are a little more removed from a lot of the situations where crime occurs. Therefore, I think that the concern that older people have about crime is a legitimate one.

We are told that Canberra is the safest city in Australia, certainly the safest city for its size, and perhaps the safest city in the world. That is all right. I know that we say that. But it is not good enough. I do not think anybody in this chamber would dispute the argument that we have to be a lot safer, that we should act to return to some of the circumstances of 10, 15, 20 or even more years ago. Only months ago, there was a disturbing trend of crime in this city, where older people were actually targeted. One criminal knocked on the doors of people he knew to be old and forced his way in. That perpetrator was caught and is now paying the price of that.

There have been other circumstances where older people have been targeted and had handbags snatched. I worry that there is now a disturbing trend that older people are being specifically targeted. It seems unpleasant and unfortunate. It certainly is. But is there that trend? Therefore, is it enough to say in a report that the older people are the least victimised in our community? Is our community changing? Are the old and the weak more vulnerable and therefore more subject to attack?

There is one recommendation that is missing from this report. It is one that I expect we would all agree with, and that is: Stop crime. The recommendations are fine; but let me indicate the headings of those recommendations. The heading for the first series of recommendations is "Overestimates of the risk of being a victim of crime". There are a number of recommendations there to assure older people that things are not too bad. The heading for another range of recommendations, four in all, is "Security advice to older people". Indeed, we should provide such advice. Recently I went to a launch by the Chief Minister of a book giving security advice, mostly on how to better lock up your home. Another four recommendations come under the heading of "Participation of older persons in community safety programs". Finally, there are two recommendations under the heading of "Urban design and public place management programs".

We did need some focus on what, to me, has been a greater risk for older people in recent times because of their vulnerability, as instanced by recent crime in Canberra. I know that the police, the Minister and everybody are wanting to cut that out. I think, in the cases I referred to, the perpetrators have been caught. But we needed to make some focus on that and at least recognise that maybe there is a change in the public and that some people - some particularly unpleasant people - are focusing on the older people in our community. I repeat that I do not think that to say that they are the least victimised is the ideal way to go. Those statistics are heavily weighted against older people, because they do not put themselves in the situations that many others put themselves in.

That said, this report contains some useful things that now, in some part at least, have been recommended. But let us not get away from the basic recommendation and the basic thrust that we must all have: Let us do more and more, and let us work as hard as we can, all together, to stop crime.

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