Page 3253 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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I will just go to issues of safety, which Mr Corbell and Ms Burch have raised again. Yes, I did acknowledge in my speech that they are legitimate concerns. But Ms Le Couteur and I visited St Columba’s in Braddon. The hall that they propose to use has fire alarms, fire exits, appropriate signage and an emergency light. And it has smoke detectors, as far as we are aware, and also toilets. As I said earlier, if there has been some assessment made that that is not appropriate and does not meet the code, that information should be provided. From seeing the site itself, and Ms Le Couteur has some knowledge of this issue as well, I can say that they have those measures in place. There needs to be some clarity over that. Mr Corbell has raised it again, but they had all those things in place.
We also need to recognise that the safe shelter group have done the right thing by going to government first. They could have just gone ahead and done the proposal, but they did the right thing.
Around those matters of safety, it is encouraging to hear that Ms Burch is meeting with the organisers, because where it is proposed to go they have those things in place. We need to stop finding reasons for it not to go ahead and start progressing this, because they are addressing all the concerns that have been raised today.
I acknowledge Ms Burch’s comments. As I said before, everyone acknowledges that shelter is not a permanent solution—as do safe shelter themselves. But it is a way of providing a safe space for people. I go to the point Mrs Dunne made that sleeping rough in itself is dangerous. If a community group is willing to provide a shelter, it should be facilitated and encouraged. We have groups who are providing sleeping swags to people. Some people may want that, for whatever reason, but if we can provide a safe shelter that is warm and that protects people, we should be encouraging that.
As I said earlier, there are examples from other states. I gave examples in Sydney where this works. I have got examples from overseas. They are able to address all those safety concerns; they are able to address issues around staffing and training. They do it and there have been no incidents in many of these places. We can look at how it has been done elsewhere and put in place those processes.
Ms Burch and Mr Corbell raised the issue around staffing. The safe shelter group have already recognised this—and the Early Morning Centre, obviously, who are also very much behind this proposal and were in the initial stages in driving this. They have actually done that training. They have talked to Vinnies night patrol; they have put in place all those processes. So again they are addressing the concerns that government has.
It is time that we had these discussions with the government and safe shelter so we can see what the concerns are. It appears that in all respects, from Ms Le Couteur and I meeting with them and talking with them quite a number of times, they are addressing the concerns that have been put forward.
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