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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 4307 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

They do not want to back what is happening in New South Wales. They have a very different approach to those on the opposition benches when it comes to addressing criminal issues, even minor criminal issues such as this.

If you compare this with some other issues, you will see that the government is dead set to bring in industrial manslaughter legislation, as no other state has yet done. We will now have two laws of manslaughter. It is dead set to bring in something that no-one in this community has been busting a gut for, namely a bill of rights. I await with trepidation some of the effects that will have when this Assembly passes it early next year.

Yet, when it comes to something like this, they will use all the excuses in the world to stop it coming in. This is not a panacea. It is one thing that I think will help address the problem of graffiti. In no way would we expect it to wipe out graffiti. There will always be some graffiti; you can never completely wipe it out. However, to say, "We are addressing the underlying causes"is really an excuse. It is a pathetic excuse because even Ms Tucker concedes that this government could be doing more about the underlying causes. There are always going to be underlying causes.

As hard as any government may try to look at the underlying causes, it is never going to completely wipe out all forms of antisocial behaviour. There will always be some form of antisocial behaviour. What you want to do, for your community's sake, is minimise it. Another term that those opposite are very happy to bandy about is harm minimisation. Put your money where your mouth is; what Mr Cornwell is introducing is a form of harm minimisation.

Yes, it may not necessarily address the underlying causes, but nothing you are doing is doing that either and you are never going address them completely. You use that as a great excuse which you trot out. It is a great excuse to do absolutely nothing, and it is a great excuse to avoid taking the very sensible path that sensible Labor jurisdictions such as New South Wales and South Australia have regarding this matter and that New South Wales has taken with regard to other sensible reforms of the criminal law. It is a pathetic excuse for doing nothing. I hope that most members of the public will see through that.

I think Mr Stanhope also quoted from the Institute of Criminology. That is all right; the institute has its views. There are a lot of people in there who have certain views; they do research. I can recall research they did probably in the late eighties. Members of the Labor Party and perhaps others in the first Assembly used some of that research to support their saying, "We cannot possibly have things like move-on powers. The Institute of Criminology suggests x, y, z as a result of that."I happened to disagree with the Institute of Criminology at that time and I think I would disagree with the Institute of Criminology in relation to this. The institute is entitled to its opinion, but that is not gospel and other states obviously do not feel constrained to accept it. They have gone down this path.

Ms Tucker mentioned an experiment that had happened at Warringah. I find that interesting for two reasons: it did not seem like a bad program, but also, of course, New South Wales has banned the sale of spray cans to under 18-year-olds, yet something

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