Page 472 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 June 1989

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I would like to take up a couple of things that Mr Kaine said. He tried to stress that we ought to look at energy use, and of course it would undercut the whole concept of the motion to narrow it in that way. What I have been trying to convey, and what the Liberal Party seems to have missed, is that we are looking for an integrated framework, a balanced proposal, across the whole area of the environment. Within that framework we can certainly then look at energy use. But looking at energy use on its own, even though we do have for the particular task at hand a restricted period, I think it is still a task that we must tackle and do to our very best ability.

Mr Speaker, I think it is appropriate now to welcome the fact that a number of parties here have supported this motion. I appreciate that, and I think that our attitude to the environment will make this Assembly and the people of Canberra leaders in this particular field.

Amendments agreed to.

Motion, as amended, agreed to.

POLICE OFFENCES (AMENDMENT) BILL 1989

MR STEFANIAK (11.57): I present the Police Offences (Amendment) Bill 1989. I move:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

It is very interesting to note in the Canberra Times this morning an article on page 3 which sums up one of the greatest problems facing Canberra at present, and that is the totally intolerable level of crime, especially street crime. It is headed "Disgruntled after city mugging", and I will read the first few paragraphs. It says:

"I don't see why I should sit at home, afraid to go out, just because of a couple of young thugs," said Patricia Beswick yesterday. She is deeply disillusioned about the Canberra she has known for 25 years.

Miss Beswick, 62, has managed only in the past two days to get out of bed after she fell victim to two young thugs in Northbourne Avenue, the entrance to Canberra, last week.

She was walking along the footpath about 11.45 pm on Wednesday, only 80 metres south of the Canberra Rex Hotel, when two young men crept up behind her. One grabbed her around the throat in a choke hold, and her arm was wrenched painfully up behind her back.

"I was punched in the side of the head, knocked to the ground twice and they stole my handbag," Miss Beswick


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