Page 191 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 2008
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There is no doubt that alcohol is the major drug involved in disorderly behaviour in Civic, simply because that is the drug that the premises sell, and legally so. Alcohol has a particular kind of effect on some people that unfortunately removes restraints from what we—or some of us—see as civilised behaviour.
Some of the recommendations made by the 1997 legal affairs committee were implemented by the government of the time and some were not, but the fact that these issues are recurring serves to highlight that we need a consistent and ongoing mechanism to deal with safety concerns in Canberra’s nightspots.
The current government is attempting to address some of these problems. The trial of the Nightlink taxi services—and I do await a report on that—which has been developed with those in the taxi industry who are willing is one effort to improve safety and accessibility to public transport in Civic at night. As I say, I would really like to see the results of the trial, but I hope that as soon as we know, if it is successful, it will be extended to other nightspots such as Manuka and Kingston.
There was a very bad series of incidents in Manuka quite recently. Remember that we hear about those incidents only when they are quite bad; there are probably small incidents happening every Friday and Saturday. We have all heard the horror stories of behaviour in Civic and Manuka. Constituents contact my office—and no doubt other MLAs as well—about the behaviour of beggars and their fears of being out in Civic at night. Not all fears are soundly based, and I want to acknowledge that, but to me it is just as bad if there is a perception of danger which keeps people out.
How do we deal with it though? The measures that have been suggested are of varying degrees of usefulness but we need to take a much broader approach. I am not reassured when I hear that we are going to spend millions more dollars on CCTV. We know that there have been a number of incidents where there were CCTVs but they were not working. I believe that people are either too drunk to care or go on the assumption that no-one is watching—and unfortunately that assumption is too often true.
Nothing is going to beat having police on the spot. We have to remember that some of the security people are part of the problem as well—some of the bouncers outside the clubs. All those years ago, the legal affairs committee proposed that there be a training and a licensing or accreditation scheme for security staff employed in the liquor industry. I do not know if that is the right way to do it, but I believe that we need to realise that they can be part of the problem.
There are urban planning policies that diversify uses. At the moment, the perception of Civic is such that pretty well the only people who are going to be there late at night are the people going to nightclubs. We need to make sure that we have a mix of uses so there are all kinds of people in Civic: people who live there and people who are coming out of meetings—perhaps teetotaller meetings or meetings for the abolition of the sale of alcohol: all kinds of meetings. But we are losing those venues in Civic rather than adding to them. We do not have a town hall. We do not have a place where there is a lot of civic activity, with people coming in and out at night. We need to look at that.
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