Page 334 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 1 March 1994
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The PCYC estimate that there are over 100,000 attendances at the three clubs each year. That means that there is tremendous demand for this service. I find it curious that the patron of the Canberra police and citizens youth clubs is the Chief Minister.
Mr Cornwell: Who is that?
MRS CARNELL: The Chief Minister is the patron of the Canberra police and citizens youth clubs.
Mr Cornwell: She did not tell us that.
MRS CARNELL: No, she did not tell us that, but she is the patron. You would have to question her commitment to community based policing and to the youth of Canberra when you look at that situation. Personally, I think she should resign while she holds that attitude.
Unfortunately, the hopes of expanding the police and citizens youth clubs to Belconnen seem to have been dashed. There seems to be no capacity now for expanding this very valuable service. The people of Canberra should be asking whether the Government is committed to prevention. Is it committed to a situation where crime will be prevented in the future, or is it just a matter of attempting, with decreasing budget allocations, to effect a cure? Obviously, there is a huge problem.
The PCYC claim that any further staff cuts will produce cutbacks in such programs as the safety house program, Neighbourhood Watch, school based policing programs and Blue Light discos. The school based policing programs are very important in ensuring that our young people, the teenagers of tomorrow, the adults of the future, have a sensible approach to the police, that they know the police are on their side and that they are not fighting the community.
According to a member of the PCYC management committee, Bernadette Allen, the clubs' hours would have to be reduced, expansion into new suburbs would be curtailed, and most Blue Light discos, of which there were 34 last year, would have to be cancelled. The Minister argues that police are more urgently needed in operational roles than in these prevention roles. I would question that. That argument probably, though, is best answered by Daniel Clode, who wrote a letter to the Canberra Times in January this year. Daniel wrote:
I was disappointed to hear the explanation of the ACT Government for the scale-down of staff in police youth centres ...
Surely the responsible Minister cannot be ignorant to the invaluable good relations which the youth centres establish between police and young people ...
The ACT Police want expansion of the centres, not an ill-timed contraction. Why are the Minister and the Department at odds?
One would have to ask that question, Madam Speaker. The ACT's Chief Magistrate, Ron Cahill, also recognises that clubs are a proven method of crime prevention. He told the Sydney Morning Herald only two weeks ago:
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