Page 193 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 2008
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I go back to the government’s turning its back on the community. Mr Corbell should stand up and amend his amendment. He should leave section (c) as it is. The positive input of the community is the only way we will effectively change these problems in the long term. Whether the events are periodic—and sometimes they are—or whether there seems to be a string of events, the community is at the heart of this. That is why we are listening and that is why we are talking with the community.
It is interesting to look at the government’s approach to the problem. When the drama happened in Civic, initially the government said that it was not caught on CCTV because the CCTVs were under construction and had been removed. Of course, that was not Alinga Street; that was Bunda Street. Then the Chief Minister said that he had not been briefed on it—that he had been only partially briefed on it, so he knew only some of the stories. I do not know how you have a partial brief. Do you pick the bits you remember or just forget the rest? I am not sure on that. When they finally worked out that the CCTVs were on Alinga Street, there was this beautiful picture in the Canberra Times with two CCTVs. There they were in the picture. Ross Solly picked it up. He quizzed the minister on the radio about it: they were not operational that day because they were being upgraded.
That is the approach from this government all the time. Do not listen to the community; blame everything else but let us not accept the fact that something went wrong. The only way we can fix it is to work with the community.
On the day there were, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, a number of constructive solutions. When everybody plays their part, you can have an answer to the problems that we have. Through the office of the Leader of the Opposition—and it was a great suggestion on his part—we as the opposition put forward the suggestion that we look at this concept of a community accord—a community liquor accord, “community” being the key word. In effect, that is what we achieved on Friday, 1 February—a community accord, one we all have a role to play in.
The things that people suggested, as outlined by Mr Seselja, were these: “Let’s have Nightlink and other options. Let’s have more CCTV coverage and better coverage. Let’s make sure that we have more patrols.” Given that Mr Seselja was not there, let me say that mention was made of the dog squad and the proactive use of it up front. You have only to look at some of the cities around the world where they use their dog squads and their horse squads effectively to stop the pressure building. That is the problem. The AFPA representative spoke about the need to put more patrols on. And well done the police for coming up with a new roster.
It is about lighting. I acknowledge the minister and the design guidelines that the previous government put in place to make sure that we minimise the area where crime can occur.
It was a very positive day. It was very positive because people spoke clearly and frankly. They said, “This is what we think we need and this is what we want.” The degrees to which they saw the problem varied.
But I go to Manuka: talking down what happened is not going to change the reality of what happened, minister. The reality of what happened at Manuka, which followed
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