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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 4331 ..

MR CORNWELL: Just a moment. If legislation is not going to work in relation to the sale of spray cans to under-18s, how does legislation work in relation to the sale of cigarettes to under-18s and how does legislation work in relation to the sale of alcohol to under 18s? If one piece of legislation is not going to work, presumably all other restrictive legislation is not going to work either. Does that not make sense? Mr Stanhope went on to say that it would only make matters worse. Does it only makes matters worse in relation to legislation concerning drink driving, drink spiking-

Mr Stefaniak: Murder.

MR CORNWELL: Yes, murder. Thank you, Mr Stefaniak. That is a nonsense argument. I would suggest to you that there is more chance of making matters worse by rejecting this legislation, because to do so would be to send a green light-that is very appropriate, a green light; also a Democrat light and a Labor light-to these vandals that this government and its fellow travellers down there on the crossbench, the Greens and the Democrats, do not care. So we will have a repeat of the Ainslie shops example. We will have a repeat of the example concerning the person travelling on the bus from Woden to Tuggeranong. We will have a repeat of the situation on Hindmarsh Drive between the Woden Town Centre and Weston Creek where various people, because of the bushfire threat in the past, have decided to put in colourbond fences and those fences are now in different colours from the original ones. The graffiti is there for all to see, yet the minister, Mr Wood, talks about the speed with which it is cleared up. I will talk about that later

Ms Tucker joined us with another long-winded homily and vague talk about engaging youth in various activities, apparently to correct any mistakes or any risks that they may run of going off the track. She also attempted to distort my comments about graffiti. Certainly, I attacked tagging of private and public property, but I did not attack street art. I see nothing wrong with some of the bus shelters and such like that have been quite attractively painted by various people, but I do not accept the mindless tagging that goes on.

She also suggested that my bill would not eliminate the scourge of graffiti. I never suggested that. I said that it would minimise the problem. Presumably, in their quest for a brave new world, the Greens are quite happy to have thousands of dollars worth of damage done to the public and private sector. They are prepared to allow, as Mr Wood has said, over $1 million to be allocated to address this scourge. They are even, I would suggest, prepared to have the $14.5 million we spend on tourism threatened. After all, you cannot have people going around putting graffiti on tourist buses. I wrote about that incident to Mr Quinlan. I have to say that I did not get much satisfaction. He gave me a homily about how important tourism is to the Canberra community and said that it was also his understanding that police carried out a thorough investigation of the matter. Thank you!

Ms Tucker referred to the efforts of the Warringah council to address graffiti. I found that interesting, but I wonder how Bankstown, Mount Druitt and some of the other places in the western suburbs of Sydney are getting on, whether they have the same resources and the same opportunity. Ms Tucker did not elaborate on that.

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