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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 985 ..

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (11.18): I seek leave to speak again.

Leave granted.

MR STANHOPE: I do not wish to delay members any longer; it is very late. Obviously, I have a different set of figures from the Minister's.

Mr Humphries: Better figures?

MR STANHOPE: No, different. I do not know why they are different. These are the ones that I received from the Australian Institute of Criminology this week. I seek leave to table them.

Leave granted.

MR STANHOPE: I have checked the figures again since the Minister sought to illustrate that he has a different set of figures that actually indicate different things. The figures provided to me by the Australian Institute of Criminology are as I read them. It may be that I am completely illiterate when it comes to reading tables and numbers; but they are as I read them and I would like to table them, for the edification of members. I would like to see the Minister's figures. I will show him mine if he will show me his.

Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, I am happy to table my figures as well.

MR OSBORNE (11.19), in reply: I do not know where to start, Mr Speaker. I thank members for their support. I thank the Government, I thank Mr Rugendyke, and I thank the leader of the United Canberra Party. I thank Mr Hargreaves for his support. I had faxed to me from the AFPA a copy of an election survey and Mr Hargreaves said that he does support crime prevention powers; so I do thank him for his support. I do not know whether his Caucus colleagues will understand his support for me, but I thank him for that.

I think I will start with Mr Berry. Mr Berry has a heart of gold - small, yellow and hard to find. I always enjoy listening to Mr Berry. He stands up and says that this is something out of the past; and, yes, it is. He went on to say that he had a great deal of respect for the police, but later he claimed that the police are bullies when they use this legislation. I would just like to remind him that words mean nothing, and that actions count for everything. I think Mr Berry's actions towards the police over the years are well documented.

Mr Moore claimed that we have the safest city in Australia. I would ask: For how long will that remain? When I arrived here at the end of 1991 I was surprised at the type of city that Canberra was. The thing that worried me was that over time some of the things that I had experienced in Sydney would see their way down here.

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