Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I do not apologise for making this adjournment speech because of the situation that has once again arisen in Ravenswood. I need to outline some of the detail of that and I will be as quick as I can.

Ravenswood is once again back in the news for all the wrong reasons and that is disappointing. It has been alleged that further missiles were thrown at Metro buses on Tuesday night and again on Wednesday during the day. Last night I received a number of telephone calls from people in the Ravenswood area who are absolutely outraged at what they had been subjected to, not only by those recalcitrants but also by, I guess to some extent, Metro. What happened last night is that people were on the bus being driven, they thought, to their home on the bus routes but they were dropped off at the shopping centre at Ravenswood to then make their own way home. They were not even made aware of that and that is the sad situation. We had young people and elderly people trying to get home and it was quite dark. Some had to walk in excess of a kilometre to get to their home. In fact, it was some kilometres for some of them. Really, it is a pretty tragic situation at Ravenswood currently because people there are copping a double whammy. They are being subjected to antisocial behaviour on the one hand and subjected to restricted public transport on the other hand, through no making of theirs. Madam President, 99.99 per cent of the people in Ravenswood are good-living, hardworking and good family people and that is the sad thing about this whole thing. It is just so disappointing.

I spoke to the manager of Metro this morning and he said that it was a decision he had to make. It was not taken lightly but he had to remove his buses once again for the safety of the drivers and of the passengers on the bus as well as because of the damage that was being caused to the buses. I accept that. However, I do challenge the need for Metro to have to be so drastic with the move to cut the buses off without at least letting the passengers and the people know what is going on. I find that fairly difficult to accept in all of the circumstances.

The manager of the service also told me that they are currently in the process of getting some new buses to the area. Those new buses will be on the Ravenswood route from time to time. Those buses cost in excess, I think, of $420 000 each. He also said that they have been provided with, I think, $520 000 from both the Federal Government and the State Government for video cameras to be placed in these new buses and perhaps some of the older buses as well, six to seven cameras on each bus. We can see that the safety within the buses will certainly be increased. I do not think that does much for improving and increasing the safety outside the buses at all.

Where are we going to go with all of this? What can we do about it? I think that the Government, in this instance, really have to stand up. I think that we need to take an action now rather than just put this matter off into the future, Madam President. A submission is being made on behalf of the Neighbourhood House at Ravenswood and I am involved in a committee that is going to put that together. However, the matter has now become somewhat urgent because these buses, as I was told today, are off the run north and east in Ravenswood, after 4 p.m. indefinitely. Can the Government sit around and see that continue to happen? I do not think they can and I think they need to do something about it.

Mr Aird - What?

Mr DEAN - I am going to give you some advice now as to what I think you ought to do. First, they have been screaming out in Ravenswood for a full-time welfare officer to work with these youths from 12 to 17 years of age for a long period. They used to have them but the funding was cut and therefore the position was cut.

Mr Aird - Which department did they work with?

Mr DEAN - I am not sure of the departments but they were welfare officers employed to work at Ravenswood with these youths. We have plenty of programs for youths there from the age of zero through to 12 years. There are programs for them; they are being catered for. But from 12 through to the age groups of 16, 17 and 18, there really is nothing at Ravenswood for them, no programs.

Mr Parkinson - Do we know who caused the damage?

Mr DEAN - Yes. I do not know if we know who through the missiles on this occasion but the police have been very successful in charging a number of youths there in the past few weeks for throwing missiles -

Mr Parkinson - It might have been 12-year-olds, for example, as well?

Mr DEAN - It may have been, but I do not think so. On the advice I have heard from the police, they are older than that, unfortunately and that they have been charged and some are on summons, others are on bail to appear and go through the court process. The police are doing a good job and they have extra police up there as well, from time to time.

The next advice I would give the Government is that we need to have the police station opened at Ravenswood, it has been suggested, full-time. I think to be reasonable, it should be open from at least 8 a.m. or there abouts to at least about midnight. If there is a presence of police, a police station is open, it does have a sobering effect on people and youth would take a little more notice because youth know where the police are and they know when they are out of the area. They have watched them, they have radios, they have telephones - they know what is going on. So if we could have that in the short term, we could see some things occurring in Ravenswood that would be of benefit to the area.

My intention tonight is simply to make people aware of what is going on, to bring it to their attention. Would we put up with this? Would the people, say, in Sandy Bay, Norwood, Newstead, some of those other areas that are considered more affluent, put up with this type of behaviour and reaction from other departments and so on if it happened in those areas? What the people of Ravenswood say, what the neighbourhood house says is, no, they would not. There would be something done about it as a matter of some urgency. The people at Ravenswood deserve exactly the same treatment. They are good people now being challenged, of course, by what has been going on there.

The sad thing about it, Madam President, is that we had the minister this morning, as late as 10.30 a.m., not even being aware of this. That, to me, is disappointing. I do not know why he had not been briefed and did not know about it. I knew about it last night and other members -

Mr Parkinson - Yes, but you received phone calls.

Mr DEAN - That is right. I would have thought that the Minister for Infrastructure would have been well and truly aware of it this morning but he was caught by surprise when he was questioned in the other House in relation to this matter.

It is disappointing because what that identifies to me is that the Government really do not know what is going on there and therefore they are not in a position to take any action because they do not know about it.

Mr Parkinson - Maybe you should get the minister's number.

Mr DEAN - Perhaps I should do. I am calling on all of the shareholder ministers - there are a number of ministers involved in this - the Police minister, the Minister for Infrastructure, I think perhaps the Treasurer has some part to play in this as well - to come together and come up with a position for some real action to take place to try to get on top of this. I said to the Press this morning, 'As a police officer, I am aware of the fact that once you let a group start and build, it becomes bigger and bigger and it becomes more difficult to control.' It needs putting out of action and it needs putting out of action now and permanently so that we can move forward and provide for these people in the way that -

Mr Parkinson - It is good that the perpetrators have been charged, by the sounds of it, so that is a big step forward. Hopefully there aren't too many of these people.

Mr DEAN - Currently, on my advice, the group is quite small. On the last advice I was given there were no more than about eight to 10 involved in this, which is a relatively small group.

But, as I said, the groups keep building. The longer they are allowed to go on, the bigger they become and, unfortunately, normally they are looking at other things to do also that are not welcomed by the populace. I do urge the Government to take real action in this instance to try to get in control of this problem.

Thank you, Madam President, and thank you, members.