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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 168 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

The police-citizens youth clubs do a wonderful job. Individual police officers do also. You mentioned one of the superintendents. I have done a fair bit myself in terms of coaching various basketball and football teams. I found, Mr Hargreaves, that you do have the occasional kid who might have a dysfunctional family and who might be starting to get into trouble with the police, but if the kid has a particular aptitude in certain activities and if that is encouraged through an organisation, with the assistance perhaps of other responsible adults, that can have a significant effect. Quite frankly, I have seen that on a number of occasions.

You said that the Government provides lip-service to the provision of services for youth. I do not think that is quite the case. You also indicated that we need to invest in supporting our kids now. I think we are doing a lot of that, Mr Hargreaves. My colleague Mr Humphries has a number of points he will be dealing with in terms of things you raised, especially in relation to the criminal law aspects and some of the aspects which the police pick up and suchlike.

I think I should point out to you that we do offer a wide range of support to all young people. Young people are defined as those from 12 to 24 years. We offer it in various areas. We offer it through education. We offer it through training. We offer it through various programs. We also are committed to highlighting the positive contribution young people make to our community, and that is something we should never forget. One of the main points which young people mention to me is that they are sick and tired of being portrayed in the media in an adverse light. The vast majority of young people contribute immensely to our society. Unfortunately, someone picks the odd bad example and that is blown out of all proportion. I think young people really do need, as much as anything else, to be portrayed in a positive light.

That does not mean that we do not need to focus on and support them through developing youth services. We have six key direction areas. We focus on promoting positive achievement and images of young people. We do try to integrate services. We focus on community development. We have a very significant community grants program, for example, which funds a wide range of services of assistance to youth. One is Project Saul. I see Mr Rugendyke there. I recently went out to have a look at that project. There are some very difficult young people involved in that. That project, which my department assists and which Mr Humphries' police force provides manpower for, does a particularly good job in terms of some of those difficult young people and we get some great success stories out of that. Some of those young people would have been assisted through other agencies and other services as well, and perhaps I can come back to those in a minute. We also have some extensive services for young people at risk. We have various employment and training programs. Of course, we do have family and community support.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, we have a wide range of services in schools. Generally our schools are safe and supportive. They provide a good environment for all our students. All of our schools develop things like school-based behaviour management policies to assist students develop self-discipline and to respect the rights of everyone else in the community. Those policies are not just punitive. They include strategies to help reduce disruptive behaviour and promote acceptable behaviour, using a whole school approach to those things.

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