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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-05-19 Daily Xml
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YOUTH CENTRES

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:49): I move:

That this house requests the state and local government sectors to work towards the expansion of existing community centres and the establishment of new youth centres in areas of need, which will provide structured activities and support mechanisms, as well as being a hub for social interaction for young people.

Members would know that in my previous life I was, amongst other things, minister for youth, and I am still very passionate about our young people, even though my youth left me a long time ago.

A lot of people, I think, pay lip service to young people and say they are important and use other words like that, but when it comes to the reality I do not think in some situations our young people get a fair go or the resources that they should by way of facilities and so on. When people say to young people, 'You are our future,' that is true, but they are also the present and, as I have often said in the past, in groups and speeches and so on, if you are 12, that year of your life is just as important as if you are 42, 52 or 92. Unwittingly, by only focusing on the future, you are actually diminishing the current significance of young people.

What I am trying to do through this motion is to focus on the need for increased facilities for young people, whether it is through a community centre or a specialised youth centre. When you look around, we have some excellent facilities for senior citizens, and I certainly welcome them, because I am probably not far off using one. They are something that the community has decided is important and if you go round in my council area, Mitcham as well, others, you will see plenty of centres set up specifically for the older section of the community.

This is not the case for young people, though. In fact, in my general area, in my electorate, we have gone backwards in terms of provision of facilities for youth. We used to have a specialised youth centre; we no longer have that. The council used to have youth workers on call 24 hours a day. They would go out if young people were drinking in the park; they would deal with that; they would try to get them home safe and sound, all that sort of thing. Nowadays we have a contracted service through the council, which is essentially 9 to 5.

I have been advocating for a long time that we have police youth clubs. The old-style youth club interstate was where many lads learnt how to box. That was one type of activity, but the new-style police youth club goes far beyond that. If you look at what happens interstate, you will find that they have specially trained police who are involved in running those centres. I will just give one example: this is the one from Albany in Western Australia (where they have just discovered some gold bullion, I understand, on a building site, but I do not have any claim to that, unfortunately), the Albany police community youth centre.

They have many throughout Western Australia, in Broome, Bunbury, Carnarvon, Collie, Exmouth, Geraldton, Harvey, Kalgoorlie, Northam, Quairading and Roebourne. They function not only as a place where young people can, to use their expression 'hang out', but they offer things like using (as recreation) air rifles, archery, badminton, driver training, fencing, gymnastics, self-defence, aerobics, and they also have Police Rangers as part of that youth facility.

As well as focusing on young people generally, they also provide special programs for those who may be either running foul of the law or who look as though they could. They provide things like anger management for young people to show them how to deal with any bottled-up anger they may have. Some of the other centres that exist provide facilities, pool tables, computers, X-box, table tennis, art and craft, DJ facilities (that is as in music) and cafes. One of the things that is borne out by surveys that have been conducted in my local area is that young people want somewhere where they can hang out together.

Older people often see that as an idle activity, but it is part of growing up. It is important that they have activities that are relevant to their age and also a place where they can go because young people are often discriminated against in some of these shopping areas. I think I have mentioned in here before that the shopping centre where I am used to play Frank Sinatra at a loud level to deter young people from hanging around the centre—Come Fly with Me. After hearing it about 1,000 times, I have decided not to go flying with Frank Sinatra—he is dead anyway.

There are often subtle and not so subtle mechanisms designed to ensure that young people do not hang around shopping centres. The shopping centre of today is really the village green of yesterday, and if young people do not go there, where do they go? What is happening in Aberfoyle Park—and it is not unique—is that you get young people hanging around the Happy Valley sports centre. Sadly, they are not all playing sport—it would be good if they were—and often they get into underage drinking and other such activities. The critics might say, 'Why don't they join the netball team, the footy team—there's plenty of sporting things.' That is fine—they could and they should—and we know that if young people do they are less likely to get into trouble with the law or other sorts of problems. They need a range of activities that go beyond that.

Some young people are interested in science, some are interested in art. Young women may have a different interest from young lads. It needs to be a comprehensive program and the survey that was done down my way indicated that they wanted to hang out at Westfield Marion (they are keen on this hanging out), which means going there, meeting their friends and being able to talk to them. A lot wanted to go to the movies. They also raised the point that they did not have a local youth centre.

An issue that comes up frequently is the lack of transport. If you are under the driving age, obviously you are dependent on parents or someone else to get around. If you do not have good public transport then you also have a problem. You have a problem for those under 18 in terms of licensed premises, in terms of going to a venue. They might just want to listen to the music, but it is not generally acceptable for young people to be going to a licensed premise if they are under the drinking age. I think the law is a little bit vague on that but, generally speaking, if it is not illegal it is frowned upon.

So, we have a large group of young people, teenagers, who essentially are locked out of a place to go where they can meet with each other, talk to each other and engage in constructive activities. This motion is really a plea for not only the state government but also local government and the federal government to really look at this issue because, if we get young people constructively involved—young people of all backgrounds, non-English speaking and Aboriginal youth as well—challenging them and involving them with specially trained police officers, it helps bridge the gap between police and young people but also helps them to see that the established order of society is not totally anti-youth, even though they might get the impression frequently that society is against them.

I put this motion just to highlight the issue. These things require money. When I have raised in the past the possibility of having police youth clubs, SAPOL says, 'Well, we're not funded for it.' Other agencies say, 'Well, we're not funding the police,' so nothing happens. We have to move away from that silo mentality, deal with the issue and with our young people. In that way not only would we have fewer young people getting involved in things they should not but also their well-being and that of society as a whole would be improved. I commend the motion to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.


[Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00]


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