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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 (Hansard) 16 May) . . Page.. 1400 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

I believe that this legislation, enacted around Australia, is the most appropriate memorial to those 35 people who died in Tasmania. It will be a memorial also to the hundreds of people who have died, even in recent years, as a result of firearms, not always in so dreadful a fashion, although death by a firearm is dreadful if it is just one person. It is still the case that, over a period, more people will die with a single shot from a weapon that is capable of only a single shot at a time, and we should not get away from that. On that basis, I believe that there are further steps yet to be taken to change this culture that has had people believe that they can retain weapons. Often forcibly, not every nation has this culture, and I think that over time we must move to that position where such weapons of violence are not a part of the local furniture. It is the case that it will take time, and I hope that Ministers, governments and representatives of the people do not stop at this point but look more and more to future steps to get such weapons out of the hands of people. We must do that as a memorial to those 35 people who died in Tasmania and to the hundreds of people who die over a period.

MR MOORE (5.15): Mr Speaker, I want to begin my speech in support of this legislation by taking the opportunity to congratulate Mr Humphries and the other Ministers for Justice and also the leadership of Mr John Howard and Mr Bob Carr in their landmark decision on Friday, 10 May. This decision, although not offering the complete answer to the problem of violence in our society, is a momentous start. I believe that it will have a profound impact on the psyche of Australians, who now have the opportunity to get a positive outcome from an horrendous experience.

Having said that, I believe the issue of gun control to be only part of the solution to a problem - the problem of violence in our community. Although, like many in this country, I was rocked to the foundations by the Port Arthur massacre, I want to take the opportunity to remind members that double the number of people shot at Port Arthur are killed every year in their own homes. There are no nationwide church services for them, no one-minute silences. They barely even get noticed. Many are women and children killed because of a relationship breakdown. Reducing the number of guns in our community is a priority, but so too is a good hard look at the other triggers - and I make the pun deliberately.

In 1990, Professor Duncan Chappell, as chair of the National Committee on Violence, produced a report that I quoted from earlier today, Violence - Directions for Australia, which came up with 48 recommendations that, had they been implemented in 1990, may well have averted the sort of tragedy we witnessed two weeks ago. In fact, the current Police Commissioner, Mick Palmer, was a member of that committee. It would be an indictment of all of us here if we did not take heed of this report and the things it urged us to do six years ago, which we ought to have done. Sometimes in our society we have in place suggestions for appropriate actions to be taken, and it is only when a catalyst is provided that we actually take those actions.

Some of the recommendations included non-violent conflict resolution strategies as an integral part of school and other educational programs; instruction in schools in human relationships, including gender roles and parenting responsibilities - I add that this should also encompass education on the creation and maintenance of relationships, so that having a partner, or having children, is not confused in any way with ownership; parenting education to be available to all prospective and current parents; effective training

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