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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 662 ..

MR RUGENDYKE (continuing):

I will be interested to see the result of any discussion that the Lake Ginninderra College students have in relation to this issue.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Rugendyke, we welcome the presence of people in the gallery, but we do not address them from the chamber.

MR RUGENDYKE: I apologise, Mr Speaker.

MR TUCKER (11.14): The Greens also will be supporting this legislation. On one level it is about consistency across Australia, which seems reasonable in this situation, although it is not something I always see as the major argument for doing something in this place. This seems to be raising the standards, which is what I would be concerned about.

When I did the consultation for this piece of legislation, some people who work in the field were a little reluctant about supporting this legislation. They felt that some children were being so terribly failed by the social welfare system that if the criminal justice system was there to catch them that was better than nothing. That is a pretty sad state of affairs. There are probably arguments to support that. The work I did on services for children at risk in this place in the last Assembly and my current communications with the youth sector indicate to me that we are not adequately supporting families at risk, families who are troubled, and their children. I am concerned that some people in the field argue that maybe we should not support this legislation, because at least the criminal justice system is something happening.

I will be supporting this legislation. It is clear from my consultations that the criminal justice system is a disaster for a child. It is probably a disaster for anybody but particularly for children. If children are involved with the criminal justice system, it is quite difficult for them to get a positive experience out of it. They are more likely to become even more involved in antisocial behaviour because the criminal justice system is about punishment; it is not about support, rehabilitation or understanding the issues of children's lives. This should be the focus of a society interested in long-term social harmony. If you want to break the cycle of violence, you have to look at poverty and social and economic disadvantage.

Mr Rugendyke said his personal view is that violent videos stimulate an interest in violent activities and have a major impact on our children. I do not know that that is supported by evidence to the extent that you would say that violent crime committed by a child - killing another child is the example that has been given in this place - was the result of watching violent videos. The argument would have to be that a child would be very troubled to begin with before they would take such an action. Perhaps violent videos would influence such a particularly troubled child, but it is a bit of a longbow to suggest that violent videos are going to cause a child to commit murder or some other violent act. That is a discussion that has been going on in our community for some time.

I am particularly enthusiastic about violent videos myself, and I cannot say I facilitated my own children being able to watch them as children. In fact, we did not have a television for most of their young lives, so it was not an issue. It is extremely disturbing if a young

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