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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 165 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

What has happened in this time? The very young people at risk have become even further involved in antisocial and, to some extent, criminal behaviour.

Mr Humphries: Can you establish that? Can you prove that?

MR HARGREAVES: Yes. Yes, we can speak of details later. I would prefer not to in this context here, but we can do that later. We can name offences, when, and all that stuff. There has been violence, under-age drinking, and general family disruption and despair, and I lay it at your feet. We are also talking about participation in such things as burglaries. All of that was predicted a year ago. The names of the kids involved are well known to the police down there. To the credit of the police, and to the absolute credit of Superintendent Alan Castle, a lot of other trouble was averted by the way in which he actually moved within the community. But the tales are sad. They are really, truly sad.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, in the Lanyon Valley we have an emerging problem. I say emerging because many of the young people are not yet at an age where antisocial behaviour could be epidemic. We have a vast range of socioeconomic groups, from the well-off who live in the Gordon Heights area, some nice areas of Conder and Banks, but we have a lot of low economic families who have life problems, which is not unique to that valley. What is unique to the valley is that we have an opportunity to do something about it. The experts say that we attack the risk factors in children and thus heighten the chances of success in later life.

I would like the Government to be more aggressive about this early intervention. Let us see the funding for youth centres more appropriate to the cost of implications of poor support. Let us see the emergence of a proper youth centre at Conder on the preferred site, near the shops. That is where the young people congregate. That is where they start. They go to areas of seclusion and they get hold of liquor and the bravado starts because there is nothing else for them to do there; because their peer support is a little bit lacking because in lots of cases the families are dysfunctional to the extent where support for a difficult member of the family is impossible regardless of how much devotion that family would want to apply to it.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, let us see support for our kids and let us support our kids in an environment not of their making. Let us give them a chance to deal with life's crises. Let us give them and their peer groups the support and skills to deal with issues and prevent the issues from becoming epidemic in 20 years' time. I would urge the Government to consider just that point that the Director-General of Corrective Services told me. Invest in supporting the kids now. Any conversation with any senior policeman in the town will tell you. They know these kids who are at risk. Many of our youth workers know them.

The youth centres themselves are working on the edge of a cliff, as it were. Let us express our confidence in those youth services. We are not asking for additional funding; we are asking for a guarantee of existence. We need to support them and say, "Okay, this is where you should be headed; this is what we want you to deliver". It is not good enough just to sit back and say, "Well, when the problem emerges we will have a go at it.

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