Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 988 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

the committee has made recommendations about how this extra funding could be spent. I understand that Mr Hargreaves has additional comments about this which I am sure he will try to explain.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the committee supported allocating funds to several projects, but the two that I wish especially to draw attention to are the funding of beat police and a range of support programs for families. The beat police program has been used previously in a few Canberra suburbs, and I believe it worked very well. People appreciate and respond well to the country town policing approach. This approach, I believe, is more focused on crime prevention, the maintenance of order in the community and managing social crises than just responding to reported crime.

Research has shown that when crime is reported to beat police they are in a position to respond much sooner and more effectively than the conventional call to the station. Unfortunately, after an extended trial period, beat police were not persisted with by AFP management. However, the committee believes that their renewed use in Canberra could bring some benefits. The committee felt that this option was something the Government should seriously look at, regardless of the fact that the committee is about to undertake an inquiry into police services in the ACT.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the second area of funding I would like to highlight from this report is the one in relation to family support programs. The committee was provided with the results of a study by the Australian Institute of Criminology that shows that for every dollar spent on family therapy programs society can gain up to $11 in benefits. I believe that it makes a lot of sense for us as a community to invest money in families that are struggling. This could come in the form of assistance with parenting skills, providing counselling and other practical types of help, such as providing kids with time on their hands with leisure activities or simply making sure they have enough to eat.

Some other things which have worked well overseas include programs for preschoolers, assistance at home for mothers with young children, and initiatives in school to make sure kids learn properly. With more research being done these days, it is becoming much easier to identify families that have problems before things get too out of hand. That makes it much easier to break cycles of behaviour and give these families a chance to get back on an even keel.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the committee has provided a degree of flexibility within its recommendations and comments by not allocating programs with amounts of money and by suggesting a range of options for the Government to consider. This came about because of the confusion over where the money was actually coming from, the extra $1.5m, and reluctance on the part of some members of the committee to make specific recommendations in relation to dollar amounts because of the time constraints. The committee hopes that this report will spark community debate, and we look forward to hearing the responses of other members and the Government.

As I said earlier, I think there were some problems in this attempt at a draft budget, but I should remind members that this was the first time in the history of this Assembly that those of us on the crossbench who are not part of the Government could have some

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .