Page 804 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 March 2019
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What has happened and indeed is happening right now in our suburbs is unacceptable. We needed this legislation in 2009. We desperately need this legislation now. By voting against the introduction of these laws, clearly the Labor and Greens members of this place are showing just how stubborn and irresponsible they are all willing to be while in power. What will it take for them to take action? My fear is that it will take a death or, even worse, multiple deaths, before this government is embarrassed into taking action. These tragedies could be avoidable. We simply cannot sit back and wait for that to happen.
We accept that there are no silver bullet solutions in dealing with criminal gangs. However, every possible option should be enacted to give our courts and our law enforcement officers every chance of beating this problem. Again I commend Mr Hanson for his work and consistency on this real and present danger to our community. I urge those opposite to consider their position on this. Consider how tenable it is in the long term if this issue does not rectify itself.
We continue to hear from those opposite that the number of gang members in the ACT has not increased. But you only need to talk to community groups who work with some of the most vulnerable in our community, like Indigenous service providers who are dealing with kids coming through the AMC. They tell stories of young kids from their communities being drafted into perpetrating some atrocious crimes on behalf of motorcycle gangs. The membership is not increasing; they are not patching them over. But they are using standover tactics. They are leaning on these individuals who are vulnerable, who are susceptible, to commit the crimes on their behalf. The numbers that are portrayed here are only touching the surface of those who are actually being drawn into the ever-continuing and escalating bikie war.
We keep hearing arguments about the human rights implications and that we need to protect everyone’s human rights. What about the human rights of the innocent bystander? What about the human rights of the children who are part of the families who are having their homes shot up? The question we all need to be asking is: how do we balance the human rights of the perpetrator and the victim? It seems that in this instance the perpetrator is getting more protection than they deserve or than they are entitled to. If you want to commit crimes—shoot people—you deserve the full strength of the law. I do not think anyone in the community thinks that there should be a defence for those kinds of actions or any excuse for not implementing every legal avenue possible.
This is a polarising issue, it seems, for the Canberra community as they head towards the next election between parties of government that do not want to enact harder laws, resource our courts and resource our front-line police officers with every option and every resource that could possibly be put at their disposal, versus the Canberra Liberals’ position, which is very clear that this kind of violence, these kinds of behaviours, in our community are not acceptable and that everything should be done to stop them.
MRS JONES (Murrumbidgee) (10.47): I stand to speak in support of the anti-consorting amendment bill moved by Mr Hanson. With the role and
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