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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3631 ..

MRS CROSS (continuing):

and a crash occurs, it severely impacts on the life of that person and on the lives of his or her family members. It also impacts on the families of other people involved. When a person steals a car and crashes into a young family taking an evening stroll, there is a much wider impact.

It is a problem when a young person gets drunk and gets into a fight with another young person who has been drinking, but that is a problem for those two people. A wider social problem is created when a person gets hold of a weapon, goes to a party to cause trouble among a group of young people who are drinking responsibly, and uses that weapon on a number of other people.

If there were more open communication lines between these young people and their parents, perhaps the first young person would have called his parents and asked for a lift, instead of trying to drive home. Perhaps the group of young people would have had their party at one of their homes, where their parents could have helped.

I am not saying that more open communication will completely stop this behaviour, but it will reduce it. So far, with the trial being in place less than a year, the results in Warringah have been positive. Whilst they are difficult to quantify and evaluate, Warringah's community safety officer suggests all respondents have been grateful for the introduction of such an initiative. This is clearly a result of the program being tailor-made to suit both young persons and parents.

Before the program was introduced, a trial was conducted at a local high school, involving 110 students and parents. Ninety-five per cent of the people involved thought it was a good idea, with most contributing ideas on how it could be improved. This program was a positive response to an ongoing problem of alcohol-related incidents among young persons on the north shore.

Whilst it is easy to wax lyrical about such an innovative yet simple program, I can hear the government perhaps saying, "How do you plan to pay for this?"It is not expensive. The only cost is that of public education, which the government should be undertaking anyway.

To demonstrate how cheap such a program is, I shall look at the history of funding for the program in Warringah. Originally, Warringah Council applied for funding through the NRMA. That application was rejected. As it was deemed to be necessary, Warringah Council went ahead with the program, running it on the smell of an oily rag. Since then, the largest cost-printing-has been covered by the internal printing budget. The only other real expense has been the production of about 30 CDs, at a cost of $400.

As you can see, Warringah Council has run this wonderful initiative on virtually no budget at all. Surely the ACT government can find room in its budget to fund such a simple and cheap, yet undeniably effective, program. This is a magnificent project and Warringah Council should be applauded-especially their community safety officer, Tryphena McShane, who initiated the program.

This is such a good program-and one that is simple and relatively cheap-that the government should look at introducing it in the ACT. I encourage members to support this motion, and to call on the government to introduce such a program.

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