Page 330 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 1 March 1994
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Mr Humphries said that there is an unexpected $1.5m saving on this year's police budget. Mr Connolly does a lot of talking about community policing, and we agree with Mr Connolly. There needs to be a lot more done in terms of community policing. The bottom line is that the best sort of community policing in the ACT, and especially out in Tuggeranong, is having the police working closely with our young people. They are not baby-sitters, as Mr Connolly calls them from time to time; they are not gym instructors. They are people who are usually doing more than they have to - they do a lot of it in their own time - to make sure that our young people have somewhere to go.
Mr Connolly tried to wipe away the fact that not too many kids would go to Blue Light discos. Let us have a look at how many kids in Tuggeranong go to the Blue Light soccer which is provided. This activity is conducted by a subcommittee of the Tuggeranong PCYC branch and has been in existence for the past 10 years. One of my young sons has gone through Blue Light soccer. During 1993, for Mr Connolly's information, 560 young people in the Tuggeranong Valley were involved in Blue Light soccer. It is one of the largest clubs in the Tuggeranong Valley. For Mr Connolly to call them baby-sitters and gym instructors fails to acknowledge the wonderful work done by the police in these areas, the wonderful non-legal interface happening between police and young people.
Mr Lamont: Who is denying it?
MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Lamont asks: Who is denying it? Mr Lamont, I can tell you who it is. When you cut funds in these areas, you, the Government, are denying these facilities for our young people. That is the bottom line, Madam Speaker. Mr Connolly can talk about community policing and members opposite can sigh and cackle as much as they like. The reality is that the people out there know exactly what is going on. When Mr Connolly and others talk about community policing, that is all they do - talk.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.22): Madam Speaker, in the course of question time Ms Szuty asked me a question about community safety. I indicated briefly the Government's new initiative in terms of the ACT community safety strategy and our commitment to achieving community safety through very widespread, strategic and positive involvement of the community. Mr Connolly has spoken further about the community safety strategy and about the role of the committee that has been appointed to oversight the development of that strategy.
Essentially, the community safety strategy is looking for new directions in how we address crime. They are doing that by fostering partnerships between the community and the Government and by ensuring cooperation between Government agencies with a multi-agency approach to specific problems. By way of illustration, the first issue that that community committee took on was the issue of alcohol in Civic. As Mr Connolly outlined, there has already been a response to some of the committee's recommendations, but they want to continue working on a longer-term set of strategies to address all of the problems in Civic in a holistic way. That is very important work and it is work that ought to be on the record in a debate such as the one Mr Humphries has raised.
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