Page 511 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 8 March 2006
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In a violent incident at Campbell on the weekend of 25 and 26 February, a teenage gang known for its predatory behaviour and violent nature gatecrashed an orderly teenage party.
The question asked by Mr Stefaniak was:
Over the weekend of 25 and 26 February there were a number of serious bashings at the Canberra show and also at a private party in Campbell by the same gangs of north-side teenagers involved in earlier acts of intimidation over the summer.
Neither of those quotes includes the term “rampaging”. I tell you where “rampaging” comes in, and that is relative to the incident at the Hyperdome on 17 February when up to 100 teenagers rampaged through the Hyperdome. I used that word in a letter to the minister reporting on that incident and seeking more information about how that all went.
As for Mr Quinlan’s point that the government has added 60 police, let me point this out: in 2001-02 there were 602.7 sworn police. In 2004-05 there were 571 sworn police. That is a net loss of 31. That goes to the heart of the problem that we have been raising in this place.
International Women’s Day
Brendan MacDonald
MS MacDONALD (Brindabella) (6.24): We all know that today is International Women’s Day. It was a busy day for those working in the Office for Women in the Chief Minister’s Department. The Minister for Women, I know, today at lunchtime handed out the International Women’s Day awards. I dropped by for those.
This evening, I draw attention to another International Women’s Day event at which I had the pleasure of representing the minister at lunchtime today after I dropped into the International Women’s Day awards. That was an International Women’s Day event held by the Multicultural Women’s Advocacy group in the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre. It was attended by a small number of people, because most women who were going to an IWD event went to the main one. But it was reasonably well attended, given that it was in competition with other events. I certainly was around at the beginning because I gave the opening speech.
I also mention the other people who were involved in that today. The President of the Multicultural Women’s Advocacy, Joelle Vandermensbrugghe, gave a very entertaining speech, I have to say. She talked about how, when she had been here for less than three months—she arrived in Australia when she was six months pregnant—she went to the hospital and was asked to fill out a form. She was talking about being asked the usual questions: “Are you allergic to anything?” et cetera. It got to the last question, which she did not really understand very well, which was: “Are you an Aboriginal?” Joelle is from Belgium and was not sure exactly what the question meant. She thought it sounded like something that she should be in support of, so she said very enthusiastically, “Yes, I am an Aboriginal, from Belgium.” It was an amusing speech that she gave. She was talking about how it takes a while for multicultural women to become accustomed to the country
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