Page 333 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 1 March 1994
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is an excellent idea. It is a low cost way to get police into the community and get them moving around in many areas without having to take a car. Mr Connolly said that it is easier to talk with people when police are on bikes than when they are in a motor car. Naturally it is.
As to the police and citizens youth clubs, I spent quite some time as a volunteer police officer with the police boys club, as it was at the time, in New South Wales. We used to go away to yearly camps, where schools would send their boys along - it was only boys at the time. That was one of the best possible things that could be done. We would play sport with the boys, we would live with the boys, we would encourage them in various activities and teach them various ways of operating in society. One of the things that should be stated is that not only do these activities develop youth but they also develop the police. There is no doubt that when anyone gets involved in community activities, particularly in the police and citizens youth clubs, that is of benefit to the people working there, not just the people that go along. We in this Assembly should do everything we can to encourage that.
The Chief Minister says that she is not going to pre-empt the budget, but let us hope that she bears in mind the statements that we are all making today, which the police and citizens youth clubs have stated as well. It is good to see that the former Griffith Primary School area will be made available. That is excellent. It is also good to see that the 1994 national conference of the police and citizens youth clubs will be held in Canberra.
Mr Humphries: We hope.
Mrs Carnell: It probably will not be now.
Mr Humphries: At the present rate, maybe not.
MR STEVENSON: Once again, I think we have had the opportunity today to encourage the Government, in their decision making capacity in this area, to take every opportunity to promote activities like the police and citizens youth clubs particularly, and the other things we have mentioned. It will result in crime prevention in the longer term, and this is the way we need to go. Certainly there is a crime problem that needs to be handled, but the long-term goal of crime prevention, of getting the police in face-to-face contact with the community and with our youth, is the greater answer.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (4.36): Madam Speaker, nobody will be very pleased with the way this matter of public importance has gone today. There has been absolutely no commitment whatsoever from the Government to change their previous position on police and citizens youth clubs in the ACT, and I think that position is totally unacceptable. In March 1993, after discussions between the AFP and the PCYC board, we all thought an agreement had been reached on staffing levels. It now seems that in the next few months at least two police officers will lose their positions and, if the documents Mr Humphries tabled today are right, it could be another three. That means that the whole operation of the PCYC as we know it in Canberra will be over. That is in a climate, according to the Canberra Chronicle report in January, where there are between 10,000 and 12,000 attendances each month at the Tuggeranong facility.
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