Tuesday 19 May 2009 - Part 2
Resumed

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I got to a stage where I was going to relate to three issues that impacted on me when I first went to Launceston but before I move into that I was going to congratulate the honourable Treasurer on his re-election to the seat of Derwent and I certainly do that.

Ms Thorp - We'll pass it on.

Mr DEAN - No doubt that will be recorded. It is not easy in an election and with the other work that he had on his shoulders at the time, it would have been very difficult for him so I do congratulate him.

I congratulate the new honourable member for Mersey as well and as the poll showed, he is a very popular person in that area of the State and probably right throughout the State. We all know his contributions to local government, to the LGAT - the Local Government Association of Tasmania - to teaching, and to sport and we will get some great and wonderful contributions from the new member for Mersey. There is no doubt about that. Welcome and congratulations.

Madam President, if I can also take this opportunity to thank my colleagues around this venue and back in their offices, wherever they might be now, and you yourself, for the support that I was given throughout the election, for kind words and best wishes throughout that whole process. It is much appreciated and it does help you move forward because it is a pretty tough time for all of us, as we would all know, those who have been through the elections, and I wish the member for Apsley all the best too, but there will not be any difficulties there either.

Ms Forrest - And Elwick.

Mr DEAN - Also Elwick. I do not think they will have too much difficulty.

I also take the opportunity, Madam President, to thank the Clerk and the staff of this House. I do very much appreciate their support. I appreciated very much their telephone calls and their best wishes and their strong support. I take this opportunity and I might say, the lovely gift that I was provided with today, my wife already has her eyes on it, saying it is a wonderful gift and that she may be removing it from me fairly quickly. So I might have to get another one. I thank you all very much for that support.

Madam President, if I could also take the opportunity to thank my wife, Ann, known to some as Jill, for her very strong support. She trudged absolutely kilometres whilst I was down here doing the things that I had to be involved in and it was tremendous, late at night in the rain. It was unbelievable and I absolutely will not be able to repay her for that strong support.

Mr Wilkinson - Don't you believe it.

Madam PRESIDENT - Be careful, I caution the member for Nelson.

Mr DEAN - I thank my three sons and their wives and one partner for their strong support. Two of my sons could sell coal to Newcastle. They are very adept at talking to people and I do thank them very much also in this venue for that support. Except on one night, one of my sons came back and he said, 'Dad, I almost lost you a vote for certain'. I said, 'Why?' He said, 'The words he spoke to me about you were not all that kind and I really felt like punching him'. But he said he stood back and did not take that course of action. I said, 'I am very pleased about that'. Their strong support is also recognised.

I do not agree with the honourable Treasurer with his four-year elections to coincide with the Assembly and I will probably say a little more about that at some other stage.

Madam PRESIDENT - Yes, I think we should relate to Chance on Main now. I have allowed a little bit of latitude.

Mr DEAN - I have already made some comment on that.

Madam President, it was very pleasing to see that our member for Elwick brought this matter forward because I have been passionate about at risk youth for a long time and in my previous position as a police officer, I met many of them. I have helped a lot but was not able to help as many as I would like to have done, to move forward in their lives.

The average youth lives an ordinary life, Madam President. What I mean by that is, they share most of the things that we have all shared. They have love, they have support, they have financial support, they have a house, they have education and they have all of the things that most of us would normally have. But there are those out there that get none of this, absolutely none of it, and there is not one of them, and the member for Elwick said this, that would not be a good kid if they were given the opportunity. The stories I am going to relate really target that area very closely.

The first example I want to give is of a 14-year-old boy who brought tears to my eyes. At this time I was the Commander of Police at Launceston and when I moved there most would remember that Launceston was going through a very bad period. It was being identified as worse than Chicago. That was the city it was being equated with, Chicago and some of the notorious American cities.

Mr Wing - Now it is as good as Chicago.

Mr DEAN - Yes. It was unfortunate and we had some extremely bad assaults and a lot of these things were captured on video. I remember a judge making a comment in relation to a pack attack in the mall in Launceston saying it was like a 'pack of savaging dogs' the way that they attacked an adult, knocking him to the ground and kicking him into a state of unconsciousness. He suffered severe injuries.

That is the sort of thing that was happening. There were gang attacks, youths running around in gangs, it was an unbelievable situation. My first story starts when I met a group of youths in the mall. I was in full uniform and at this stage I had taken a hard line on how we were going to straighten things up in Launceston. I knew that this group was one of the pack causing the problems and so on. Their comment was that it was all very well for me to make statements and to do certain things but when I was a kid I had everything, like an eight-ball table, a ping pong table, a television; they went through a whole raft of things. They said they did not have any of that. If they want such entertainment they need to go to a hotel or break in somewhere. I had to agree. What they were saying was right. They said that if we were to give them something to do, some support, they would show us that they can do the right thing. As a result of that we set up in Launceston a Northern Safer Communities Partnership committee involving a number of businesspeople, myself and somebody from nearly all walks of life. After a number of meetings we suddenly realised that the problems that we were mainly talking about involved the at-risk group of kids. We then realised that we had nobody on the committee to support them, to help us to move in their direction in any way.

We made a determination there and then that we would get on that committee an at-risk youth. We targeted a particular youth living on the streets, who was involved in drugs, was almost an alcoholic and we brought him into our midst. He resisted for a long time, did not want to participate. We convinced him to become involved. At the first few meetings he said really nothing. He was reluctant to come forward, but after a while he started to open up. As a result of that, to cut a long story short, he was employed by one of our committee members, a lady known to some of you, Di Porteous, who is involved in one or two chemist shops. Her family has a large farming property in the Midlands as well.

Di Porteous employed this young person in her chemist shop. As a result of that and the affection and support shown him, he turned his life around. He met a young lady and married, moved to the mainland where he got a position in a chemist shop and is now a very strong member of society and doing all of the right things. I give that as an example of how kids can change if they are given an opportunity.

I want to refer to another occasion and this is one that upset me immensely. A 14-year-old youth in Launceston committed an offence in front of the police. He saw the police coming his way, grabbed something - I cannot remember what it was - and smashed a car windscreen. He did not move when the police approached him, went with the police willingly and was kept at the Launceston police station overnight. It turned out that he had been released from Ashley about three days previously.

When I came into work in the mornings I always made an effort to find out what had gone on through the night. I had a meeting with this 14-year-old youth and I asked him why he had done what he did. His answer was, 'I was released from Ashley, I had nothing. There was no support given to me after leaving Ashley. I went back home. When I got back home there was no food in the house at all and I asked my mum for some food and money and she said go down the street and get a voucher, City Mission, and get myself some food'. He said he did that and he came back and wanted to watch television and he could not watch television because there was a heap of drunks in the house at the time. He then tried to go to bed, but there was somebody in his bed who was drunk and he said he made his mind up there and then, Ashley was a much better place. He said he was assured of a meal, a bed, television and support. That is when he made up his mind to smash a window to get locked up again. I simply relate that to identify some of the sad situations that we have out there.

Mr Wing - What happened after that?

Mr DEAN - He went to Ashley. He was then given support. I am not quite sure where he is now, but he was really making an effort to turn himself around. He became involved with the youth shelter at Launceston with Mr Harry Tamms who got him involved in seasonal work and so on. The last I heard was that he was making a real change in his life.

Mr Wing - That is good.

Mr DEAN - We are talking about a 14-year-old youth. It was tragic.

The point I want to make is that we have an opportunity with Chance on Main which is providing great support to these kids. Funding is a necessity - of course they need recurrent funding - and I would urge the Government and any other organisation that is able, to support these groups. If we can change one kid around - as has already been said here today - the saving to this State over a lifetime, is huge. Unfortunately, for a lot of these kids, once it gets entrenched into them, once they become 18, 19 and 20-year-olds, you are almost losing the battle. Some will change later in life when they get married, or have children, and sometimes they will settle down and change. But we need to do it early whilst they are children and whilst there is an opportunity to change them.

Members have talked about the diversionary programs and so on, and we all remember the diversionary programs that we went through when we were kids. Perhaps the Leader remembers this - I can certainly remember it. Perhaps the member for Launceston remembers it; the diversionary treatment was a swift kick in the backside by a police officer and a severe pulling of the ear. That was the normal diversionary process that a lot of us went through and it worked in many situations.

I do not remember having copped that sort of treatment but I certainly remember one of my brothers getting the treatment. He was driving a car without a licence and the police officer at the time pulled him up, brought him back to my parents and he got a swift kick in the backside. He never did it again.

Now the diversionary programs involve sitting around a table with all parties, including the victims, the offenders, the parents, welfare officers, the police and having a discussion around the table. In fact, it was taken from the New Zealand model. The Maoris in New Zealand set this up originally, and this is how they still deal with youth today, talking to the youth, the offender et cetera in that sort of environment and it works.

Mr Wilkinson - The police get a bit concerned though, don't they, because what they often say is, 'We are here, we are stopping them or alternatively arresting them after they have committed a crime, but what occurs to them is nothing at all. They treat it as a joke and they immediately go out and do it again'. I know that does happen and the police are sometimes extremely frustrated because they believe they are beating their heads against a brick wall .

Mr DEAN - You are absolutely right when you say that, and you will have youth say that to you. 'If we get caught, so what? Nothing is going to happen to us'. For the diversionary model to work properly it has to provide follow up and I think the evidence shows - I am not quite sure what the statistical data says now - 90 something per cent of the kids would turn around. I might be a little bit out there, it might not be quite that number.

Mr Martin - But not being recidivists.

Mr DEAN - Not being recidivists - the number was huge. There is a need to give it follow up support to ensure that these kids are given support as they move forward. Madam President, having said that I certainly support the position brought by the member for Elwick. I am passionate about our kids and I will always do whatever I can to help any of these kids at risk. I am currently doing that in another issue that I am looking at now and I will be speaking further about it in this Chamber because I have a meeting coming up very shortly. It is to provide an opportunity for youth in the north of the State, but at this stage it is rather confidential until it is discussed with other people, but I will be bringing it back to the Chamber in due course.