Page 2332 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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effort being put into those kids. There is a history and a story behind people’s so-called antisocial behaviour. It is not as simple as locking them up, telling them not to do certain things and so on. That is, unfortunately, the complexity of the society that we are in.
Let us hope that the Alexander Maconochie prison is the success that most of the people in the community—I actually think that includes the Liberals—want it to be. After years and years of saying there should not be a prison, the rhetoric of the Liberals changed to “this prison’s too expensive” and then it changed to “hey, you’re not building the quiet room”. Now I hope there is just the same sort of concern and caring on that side of the room for some of the most vulnerable people in our society—we may not like to admit it, but that is what they are—and their families than there is in the community, and, my goodness, I hope we work together as a community on this one.
I want to talk about CCTV cameras—closed-circuit TV cameras—as a way of fighting crime. I recently read of a jurisdiction which has totally removed CCTV cameras because they found that they did not work. CCTV cameras are only useful if they are working and if there is someone to watch them, ideally at the time that they are being used. They could be handy as evidence several days later, but are we not really more about avoiding crime rather than recording crime? I am an absolute advocate of community policing. I am very glad there are more police on the block.
On the whole, I hear good things about the police. Sometimes I do not. I keep hearing stories about young people, young men often, who really can have a hard time with the police. I am not going to go in to why that is. At one stage I had representatives of Indigenous communities saying that young Indigenous men in particular were having a hard time not just with the police but also with security guards and people like that. I am fairly sure the security industry would come under the oversight of JACS, and this is an industry that is growing exponentially and possibly is not being looked at quite enough. Given that it is growing exponentially and given the shortage of labour, it just could be that some of the people that are becoming security guards are not the most gentle people or the most thoughtful people. Let us face it: it is a very boring job.
Mr Gentleman: I found it quite exciting.
DR FOSKEY: That’s right, Mr Gentleman was a security man. Recently I walked past a security guard, a woman actually, which was fairly unusual, near the Street Theatre. She was standing behind the new student accommodation there. She basically had to stand there for six hours, and there was not a lot happening. Anyway, she had her iPod.
The Essential Services Consumer Council is receiving more funding. It has a really important role. I know it has more work to do as utilities bills increase, which they will continue to do. We know the price of water is going to go up and electricity has just gone up. I am afraid the ICRC would be unfairly getting the blame if we did blame it for that. We do not know what the impact of emissions trading will be; it is a wild card. The Essential Services Consumer Council is becoming more essential. (Second speaking period taken.)
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