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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 4 Hansard (29 March) . . Page.. 1212 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

One more reads:

It has gotten to the point now that myself and many others living here are afraid of walking out our front door and our children are terrified. The people make no secret of the fact that they take drugs and you rarely ever see him without alcohol in his hands. What was once a wonderful housing complex full of nice neighbourly people is now very unpleasant.

Finally:

At the beginning of December the lady vandalised my car and since that day we have both received threats, property damage, obscene comments and intimidation towards both ourselves and our young children.

They are the sorts of comments I get and I am sure other members get too. Sometimes-I do not think in these cases-there are two sides to the story. I acknowledge that. A couple of those letters were from public housing tenants. Three were not. This is a problem across the whole spectrum. I am not picking on any one sector of our community.

The stock answer is: "It is a police problem" or "Go to conflict resolution." They are both solutions, but solutions require both parties to be prepared to do something about it, especially with conflict resolution. The conflict resolution people have a reasonable amount of success, but if in those cases that come forward to them one party just bails up there is not much that can be done.

I went to the launch at Tuggeranong a little while ago of Healthy Neighbourhoods, a cooperative effort including the police and other community bodies in Tuggeranong to attend to problems like this. I think it is early days. I am still not convinced that we can get the right amount of attention in Tuggeranong in those areas where it is needed. It is early times and we are getting there-I hope. We need to. I will be looking for that Healthy Neighbourhoods activity to grow and to improve, building up a considerable amount of expertise.

I want to give some credit to the government and Mr Moore. We exchanged some blows earlier in the day, but I want to make favourable comment here, because in respect of the public housing sector the draft budget has provided $150,000 for activity to work in this area. In our budget briefing there was a thought that maybe some more might be available. Because of the way we have responded to the draft budget, it is possible for the minister to take that on board. The minister has recognised, in that one area-and this is only part of the whole problem, I emphasise-that something can be done; that something needs to be done. I think that is a very good idea.

Police and others have to be proactive. I have seen such distress in this area that it is not simply enough to say that this is part of living in a city and these are the problems you can expect to get. I think we need to be more and more proactive, as Mr Moore has been. The police need to be more proactive. A police visit, if properly and carefully done, is very productive. I would like to see a little more emphasis from the police. We simply cannot let some situations carry on.

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