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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-05-18 Daily Xml
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YOUTH VIOLENCE

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins:

That this council—

1. Expresses its concern at the recent number of unprovoked violent attacks in South Australia;

2. Congratulates organisations such as the Sammy D. Foundation for proactively seeking to discourage youth violence by empowering young people to make safe and positive life choices; and

3. Urges the Rann government to implement a public awareness campaign targeting all forms of youth violence modelled on the One Punch Can Kill or Step Back Think campaigns operating in Queensland and Victoria.

(Continued from 9 March 2011.)

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (20:05): I rise to speak on behalf of the Greens to support this motion put before us by the Hon. John Dawkins, noting, with concern, the unprovoked violent attacks that have recently occurred in South Australia, but noting that it is not confined just to South Australia, this is, in fact, an Australia-wide phenomenon, and congratulating organisations such as the Sammy D. Foundation, which I must say is quite an amazing and inspiring foundation and, as South Australians, we should be very proud of that particular family.

As a politician, it has been my privilege to meet the parents of Sammy D. They are some of those truly inspirational people who make you feel like you should be making more of a contribution as well. The motion also urges the Rann government to implement a public awareness campaign targeting all forms of youth violence, modelled on particular programs that are cited here, such as the One Punch Can Kill or the Step Back Think campaigns operating in Queensland and Victoria respectively.

I will start by saying that I echo very strongly the concerns about unprovoked violent attacks in South Australia and note that this motion suggests some ways that this state might be dealing with these attacks. The attacks of the kind that are intended in this motion are often related to alcohol and alcohol-fuelled violence, bravado and youth.

The Sammy D. Foundation is the tragic story of a young South Australian who has lost his life, but it is also an empowering story of what those who were left behind have done to make sure that something like the tragedy that happened to Sammy D. and his family does not happen to other young South Australians, and they are to be congratulated for that. They put a lot of time and effort into making sure that it never happens again by speaking to school groups, starting from primary school right through to older years, ensuring that there are resources for safe partying, that parents are armed, that young people themselves are armed.

It has been communicated to me that the power is that Sammy D. is a South Australian lad who is quite often either someone just like them or just like someone they know. That is the thing with these violent attacks. It is true that one punch can kill. It is true that one silly decision in one instant can have an absolutely profound effect.

Other states are addressing this with, I believe, quite innovative campaigns. I have seen firsthand the One Punch Can Kill campaign in Queensland. It is quite present in the media in that state, but it is also really well embraced by the community. I have made myself familiar with the Step Back Think campaign today online. Both of these campaigns are absolute examples of what community engagement and community development can bring to cultural change around alcohol and violence. They are to be commended and they are models that I think we could be running with.

The Sammy D. Foundation has a role to play here, but it is not the only approach. I think that campaigns such as One Punch Can Kill and Step Back Think have quite a bit more to offer that would be of value to our community and I urge the Rann government to take a look at these particular programs and see how they can be adopted here in South Australia. As with all community development and engagement, it actually has to come from the community. It has to be giving members of the community, be they young people themselves, be they parents, be they teachers, be they institutions such as schools or football clubs, the tools that we need to address this issue.

Unless we are all empowered to do something about it, we will all feel helpless and unable to do something about it. It is a growing trend and, as I say, it is a really significant and sometimes seemingly unstoppable trend to see young people and alcohol-fuelled violence growing in this country, but it is a trend that can be stopped, and these programs show that it can. I commend this motion to the chamber and congratulate the Hon. John Dawkins on bringing it to our attention.

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON (20:10): I also rise to support the motion of the Hon. John Dawkins in relation to initiatives to discourage youth violence. It has long been my gripe in this place that this government does very little to deal with social issues in a practical and proven manner, and youth violence is of great concern because the patterns that our young people establish often remain with them for the rest of their lives or until some kind of trauma occurs to force behaviour change.

Our children are exposed now to violence in so many ways, in their immediate environment through media, video games and often music videos, and sometimes it seems that even cartoons target our children and promote violence and abuse at a lower level. Of course, as they get older we do have that influence of alcohol and drugs that is another factor in how this seems to be a problem that is raging out of control.

I remember, just after I came into this place, my son, who was then 19, went for a night out at a local hotel, band playing, and went outside to wait for a taxi and was set upon by seven young people with bats. He was beaten to the ground and kicked in the head and had to be taken to the hospital. It was an unprovoked attack. They were not even looking to rob him. They just wanted to bash him, and if it had not been for a security guard at that particular venue daring to cross the road and get involved, I actually fear what would have happened to my son at that time.

I also have an nine-year-old son who attends a local state school here in South Australia. I have to say that the high school attached to this was where that young boy was hanged by two of his classmates. I want to make it clear that this particular primary school takes extraordinary steps to identify and deal with abusive or violent behaviour even at a primary school level. Their challenge is that they have children who suffer autism spectrum disorder and Asperger's, and those children are integrated well into normal classes but they have their quirky behaviour that can quite often be antagonistic for the other kids. I am talking here about years 1, 2, 3 and 4 children who do not yet grasp that these kids' brains are wired differently.

The teachers have quite a challenge in trying to get the kids who do not have this disorder to understand the behaviours and the quirks of these other kids and not to retaliate. As I said, the school has a restorative justice system in place that is a wonderful model, and I have seen my nine-year-old son go from one mindset of, 'Well, you know, if these kids want to continually be disruptive and whatever and provoke in the playground, then what am I to do?' to being able to work in a group setting with other students and a school counsellor to develop strategies that include those children who are perpetrating this violence in this group session where their peers are able to express to these children exactly what effect their behaviour is having on them and how it is making them feel.

I have to say that, since my son has been going to this school for the past 2½ years, I have seen a level of growth in him as a nine-year old that makes me proud and pleased that we have chosen this school, because it had a functional, restorative justice program in place. I believe this is the place to start, as well as acknowledging the work of the Sammy D Foundation and other foundations and the campaigns that were mentioned by the Hons John Dawkins and Tammy Franks—the One Punch Can Kill campaign and the 'Step Back. Think' are one level, but we have the ability, as this school, Para Hills West Primary School—and I will put that on the record—should be used as a model for all other state schools in this state.

We withdrew our son from a private Catholic school because they were not enforcing their bullying policy and were not offering any strategies to either the bullies or the victims to help stop that bad behaviour that often turns kids away from going to school in the first place. In this two-year period with this school all of my admiration goes to the principal and assistant principal of this school and their staff, because their staff actually went, in their own time and at their own cost, and got training, first, on how to integrate children with Asperger's and on the sort of stimulus they need to be able to bring them to a higher level of functioning and to be able to socialise and, secondly, for this restorative justice program they have and they are consistent and persistent with their application of this.

I honestly wish that the Minister for Education would pay a visit to this school and speak to the principal and assistant principal and note the application of, first, their anti-bullying policies but, secondly, their restorative justice program. I do not believe there would be any schools in this state that operate at that function and prevent children from getting into the cycle of violent and abusive behaviour in the classroom and in the playground. I just wanted to put that on the record because I actually do not like standing on my feet all the time and being critical of the government, so I think this school, being a government school, deserves the credit I have given it.

In saying that, there are many reasons why our children have become desensitised to violence and to the effect it has, not only on their own psyche and their own emotional development but also on their victims. It is has become a mindless practice against a minority of our youth but nonetheless, as the Hon. John Dawkins mentioned, it is put out there so easily over Facebook, phones and whatever now that it has become a fashionable trend to glorify this kind of behaviour, and any steps we can take to change that message is important.

Governments should be on the front foot with this; they should be looking at what is being done on a number of levels around the state and country and do what they can to provide leadership in this area. At the end of the day we have seen some drastic changes in our social structure and the way we live our life, and parents today do feel quite powerless in their ability to adequately protect their children. That level of caring and concern does not end when our children turn 18—actually I think it is amplified after the age of 18.

I remember the days when we felt safe, the days when we were children, free to roam and have our childhood adventures—sometimes to the distress of our parents—and go to our friends' homes and socialise, and there was a true sense of community. That life is disappearing, and I believe that our kids are acting out the disconnectedness that they are now experiencing and the inability of many to have an acceptable level of safety and freedom which was our right.

I will not go into my views on all of the causes of these changes because that is not what this motion is about, but I will say that parents feel powerless to adequately protect their children these days. As a result, our children are restricted in the activities that most of us were able to participate in and that literally contributed to our independence, our free thinking and, dare I say, our desire to strive and achieve. We now see so many kids attracted to gangs because it gives them a sense of belonging. Of course, we all know that gangs are not just about social networking and that those young people find themselves in a lifestyle that expects violent and criminal activity to be integrated into the everyday lives of their members.

It has always been my view that if a government addresses these sorts of issues and reflects community expectations through its actions, then the community generally feels supported and their concerns validated. Sadly, I have to say that since I have been in this place this has been the one concept that I have seen sadly lacking with this government: their expectation of citizens to live to a code of conduct that is quite often unreasonable, when their own responsibilities and what is expected of them by people is to lead by example.

I have said this before, and I will say it again: I have not been in here as an Independent under another government, but I was a lobbyist when the Liberal government was in power, and I have to say that the Hon. Dean Brown went out of his way to make sure that community people and community groups got the support they needed to help to change the negative cultures that were going on out there. It was certainly my experience, as the founder of the DrugBeat program, that he was available.

When he was the minister for human services, I can remember having meetings with him in here at 9 o'clock at night. He made himself available, and that is something that I just do not see happening with this government. I think that when a community is disconnected from its government, and does not feel supported or validated, that then flows from the top down, and I have used the phrase 'the fish rots from the head' in here before.

This is an opportunity for the government to grasp this motion of the Hon. John Dawkins and look at these campaigns and at what is happening in schools like Para Hills West Primary School to try to break that cycle early and change our children's behaviour and our children's perception of what is acceptable and unacceptable and look at how to socialise them. That school hands those skills down to the parents, and we play a very proactive role in working with the school to keep that message consistent. There are many, many things that we need to do.

I note that the Hon. John Dawkins and the Hon. Tammy Franks made mention of Sammy D, and the family that established the Sammy D Foundation after the death of their son, who was king-hit at a house party in 2008. I can relate to why parents get motivated, get up off their backsides and try to do something to prevent other people in the community from feeling the pain and trauma of the loss of a child, because I did exactly the same thing in relation to substance abuse. It is not because you want to impose your views or your values on anybody else; it is because you want to do something valuable, something to contribute and make sense of the tragedy you have actually experienced.

Inevitably, those foundations and groups that are started up by people who have themselves experienced that trauma have an element of understanding and caring that can never ever be duplicated by trained social workers or be put into policy and procedure by bureaucracy, because it is of the community, for the community and by the community. This would only enhance supporting these sorts of organisations and foundations, as well as running campaigns like the One Punch Can Kill and the Step Back and Think campaigns. I have also seen those campaigns on television in Queensland; they are hard hitting and get the message through.

As the Hon. Tammy Franks said, the community has actually embraced that message and it has taken ownership of it. If we could do that in South Australia I believe it would be a huge feather in the cap of not only this government but this parliament; to actually send a message out there that we care enough to get involved in these sorts of things to try to protect our children and to protect families from the trauma that comes from what we are basically doing now, which is turning a blind eye and sweeping it under the carpet. As I said, I support the motion of the Hon. John Dawkins and commend him for bringing this and other important social issues to this place for debate.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (20:26): Once again, the Hon. John Dawkins brings a motion into this chamber which stimulates us to debate a very important social issue. He has form in doing this, and I commend him for it. He continually raises before us motions of issues which we need to grapple with as parliamentarians. Like all members of this council, I am quite sure that I express my concern at any act of violence in the community. Similarly, I am sure that all members in the chamber support and recognise the outstanding work of the Sammy D Foundation and other organisations like it as worthy of our congratulations and our support. So there is no argument on the first two points of the honourable member's motion, and I think we can all endorse them in this place.

However, clause 3 causes some concern for government members, not because of what it says but what it leaves out. The government already has in place a number of measures to tackle youth violence across many agencies, from the Office for Youth to the South Australia Police, to the Department of Education and Children's Services, to drug and alcohol services in South Australia. The government will oppose this motion because of clause 3, which we believe does not recognise the importance of the multiagency approach to violence, which we think is the way forward; but we will oppose it quietly and softly.

Any incident of unprovoked violence is cause for concern for the safety of the victim and also of the broader community. Linking this only to youth is unhelpful as it has the potential to stigmatise youth and neglect the rest of society. The government has recognised the need to act to curb violence throughout society and already has many initiatives aimed at promoting a safer and more harmonious state. The approach to tackling violence, including youth violence, is an integrated one. It sees multiple government agencies all working towards common goals of reduced violence and increased safety.

Considering first of all our youth strategy, in November last year, the Minister for Youth released Youth Connect, South Australia's youth strategy 2010-14, reflecting this government's commitment to supporting young people. Youth Connect brings under one umbrella a number of programs and new initiatives. It provides a framework and action plan to guide government programs and services to young people. The strategy does not focus solely on youth violence. It recognises the complex and integrated challenge of creating an environment where young people can thrive, and this obviously includes keeping young people safe from harm. But it is much more than that: the strategy focuses on building on young people's capabilities, their resilience, their confidence and their self-esteem.

This approach can reduce violence as well as nurture a number of other positive outcomes, leading to a better result than just focusing on youth violence alone. I am told that the new Youth Connect strategy also provides additional grant funding to the level of $500,000 (more than double the previous funding) to support delivery of the strategy. Another grant program to help reduce youth violence is the Crime Prevention and Community Safety grants. These grants annually help deliver programs that improve the safety of young people as well as the wider community.

The Deputy Premier, the Hon. John Rau, from another place, recently announced the recipients of funding for the coming year, with programs including mentoring for Vietnamese youth, Outreach assistance for at-risk youth in the CBD, and an innovative anger management program for young people based in the City of Marion called Brain Snap! It might be a program we might want to adopt into this chamber for our late-night sittings. It was one amongst many others to receive funding. The total grant funding, I understand, for all projects in this grant program is $700,000. These programs will improve safety for young people, as well as delivering other benefits.

The Deputy Premier in his role as Attorney-General also recently released a paper detailing the government's intent to create new laws to target online thuggery. A growing trend has recently emerged where technology and social media are being used to humiliate and degrade victims. The government is extremely concerned by this development, because distributing humiliating and degrading images may be motivating people to plan and commit assaults. This is relevant to reducing youth violence because of the prevalence of social media in modern youth culture. However, this is another violence prevention initiative that is not confined to young people. The benefits will surely flow to young people, but not solely young people.

Another new initiative is the work DASSA and SAPOL are doing to develop a new alcohol campaign that is aimed at young males. The connection between alcohol and violence is well known and the need to tackle alcohol-related violence is clear to all of us. The campaign will include television advertisements to promote high-level awareness. It is proposed to be a line to state and national strategies to address alcohol-related violence. It is yet another example of the integrated nature of our approach to this issue.

Similarly, DECS and SAPOL have a long-standing partnership, including the School Watch Level 1 initiative. It provides an opportunity for schools to be certified once they meet stringent standards for safety, security and community engagement. Additional programs include school-based crime prevention education, bullying and violence in schools, as well as a specific program focusing on cyber bullying.

Before I conclude my remarks, I take this opportunity to emphasise that organisations such as the Sammy D. Foundation are indeed worthy of this council's congratulations. The work they do to encourage young people to think about the consequences of their actions and the compelling and highly engaging way they present to young people is highly commendable. I know a number of government members in the other place, including the Minister for Police, the member for Reynell and the member for Mawson, have personal associations with the foundation. I am sure they are more than happy to share with us their stories, and at great length, if we ever ask them to.

The government does congratulate the Sammy D. Foundation and has gone further: we have supported their work through grant funding. The Crime Prevention and Community Safety Grants program, one of the grant programs I mentioned previously, provided $20,000 for the foundation to purchase state-of-the-art multimedia equipment, including projectors, laptops, screen, camera and audio equipment, and also funded travel expenses and printing costs. I also know that SAPOL work with the Sammy D. Foundation, with officers participating in many of the foundation's local level safety presentations.

The government appreciates the spirit of the motion, but for the reasons outlined—particularly the significant volume of work already being done on this issue—we will oppose the motion. I urge other members to do likewise if they wish but, as I said earlier, we will be opposing in a very soft and gentle way.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (20:33): I rise to conclude the debate on this motion. I sincerely thank those who have made contributions. Firstly, I thank the Hon. Tammy Franks and the Hon. Ann Bressington for their support and, of course, a number of others in the chamber and beyond who have indicated their support for this motion. As has been the case in the past, they bring their own particular perspectives to this debate and to this issue, which is such a serious issue across the community not only in this state, as the Hon. Tammy Franks said, but, sadly, across the nation. I will speak a little bit more about that shortly.

The Hon. Ann Bressington also quite rightly mentioned the impact of social media, particularly the use of Facebook, largely by young people—although not only young people—to put the wrong messages around about behaviour in the community. Only a few weeks ago in this house when we talked about suicide prevention, sadly, we talked about the terrible case that was on the front page of The Advertiser. As I said on that occasion, the coverage on Facebook—the attitudes from a lot of people in the community to the ending of a person's life through that social media outlet—was very alarming to me. I think, similarly, in relation to violence, it can be a very concerning situation as well.

I would also like to thank the Hon. Mr Hunter for his contribution on behalf of the government. I know that he shares my concern on a lot of the social issues that I do bring into this place and I appreciate that support in that way. I also appreciate the time he has taken to outline the multi-agency efforts by the government in this area of behaviour in the community.

Can I say, though, that, like in many other areas, while the government does work through various agencies and it does develop grant programs and it does in some cases drip-feed some money out to some of these community organisations, it is my experience in this area and many other areas of our society that, if you actually provide a bit more money to some of those community groups and let them lead in the community, they will give us a much greater bang for our buck than by doing it through the various agencies.

I mean no ill comments towards many of the very good public servants who work in those areas, but let us not ever forget the value of our community groups and our volunteers. This evening there have been a number of very good comments made about the work of the Sammy D Foundation, and I wish to particularly acknowledge Nat Cook and Neil Davis for their work through that organisation. I have no doubt that, rather than all that work that they have done in that area with so many young people, they would much prefer to have their own son with them and not be here tonight listening to me and others talking about this issue.

However, as I have said before, they have reacted to a tragedy in a way that not all of us would. None of us really knows how we would react until something like that happens in our life, and I pay great tribute to both of them for the way in which they have decided to respond to such a terrible thing that happened to their family. I commend the Sammy D Foundation on its work through its newsletter, its advertisement on YouTube that I have mentioned in this place before, its recent antiviolence walk and a range of other ways in which it gets its message across, as I have said many times in this place, on the smell of an oily rag, and I think we will always take our hat off to the people who do that.

That is why I do say to the government: yes, do all you can through the agencies but let us give some headroom, give some ability to work hard, give them a bit of seed money and they will do a lot with it. At this point I also acknowledge the passion and commitment to this issue by Mr Todd Hacking of my staff. Todd, I think, reflects a lot of people in this age group in his middle 20s.

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: I thought he was much older than that.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: He is much younger than me; let's put it that way.

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: He looks much older than his 20s; he looks like he is in his 30s.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: I won't respond to that.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: I will leave the interjections alone. Mr Hacking, I think, has shown a commitment, like a lot of people of his generation do, to trying to avoid the things that they see quite regularly. Young people in the community see more of this violence than some of us who have become more advanced in age. I think it is a great credit to him, and many others, that they care enough about the people in the community to want to do something about it. That is a great thing for the future of our community, and I thank him for his commitment to that.

I went to Queensland last year, and while I was in North Queensland looking at suicide prevention programs I witnessed the work of a gentleman up there who had lost a child in similar circumstances to Ms Cook and Mr Davis. That gentleman goes out as a volunteer and advances the cause of the One Punch Can Kill program. That got terrific publicity in North Queensland while I was there.

As I have said previously in this place, the Queensland government has committed significant funds over a number of years to One Punch Can Kill. People from the police and from the police minister's office were surprised that they had a visit from an opposition politician looking at their program and that the state government of South Australia had never come near them to see how that program was working. I make that comment because it has been successful up there, as has the Step Back Think program in Victoria.

I have raised these issues for some time. I received a response in September last year from the Hon. Mr Hill, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, and I quote an excerpt from what he said to me:

The interstate campaigns you highlight have a specific focus on violence, whereas the 'Drink too much, it gets ugly' campaign—

which is the program that the government has run for some time—

addresses the 'ugly' behaviour and serious consequences associated with alcohol misuse, one of which is violence.

The government has targeted alcohol-fuelled violence, and it has subsequently followed the Drink too much, it gets ugly campaign with the Drink too much, you're asking for trouble campaign. While I acknowledge the efforts the government has made in this area, I will continue to passionately advocate for a broader anti-violence message to ensure a more holistic and measured anti-violence public awareness campaign, something that goes beyond just alcohol.

It is an issue I hear about all the time. The Hon. Ann Bressington has related some instances from the northern suburbs, and I do a lot of work in the northern suburbs, but it happens broadly across the community. Only the other day I heard of an attack similar to the one the Hon. Ann Bressington talked about with her son happening in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide. It can happen anywhere and it can happen to any family. In commending this motion to the council, I repeat the conclusion of my opening remarks; that is, one punch can actually kill.

Motion carried.

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