Mr DEAN (Windermere) - The matter I am going to raise I think the members from the north would be familiar with in particular. Those in the south may not be aware of it but it is an important issue. I refer to the Ravenswood situation.

There has been an ongoing dispute in the Ravenswood area in relation to a lot of antisocial behaviour. As a result, the people of Ravenswood have been penalised through their bus service being curtailed. It is the only service that many people have to get themselves out of Ravenswood and into the city area. On top of that, we had taxi services refusing to go to Ravenswood at certain periods of the day and night, so it really did cause a lot of concern.

Mr Parkinson - That's not unique to Ravenswood .

Mr DEAN - No, it is not and I was going to say that. Another situation was that in Gagebrook recently, where bus services were curtailed because of similar activity - stone-throwing, or slingshots and goodness knows what else.

To set the scene, Ravenswood was a large Housing Tasmania development, something that no longer occurs. It is very similar to a lot of other developments around this State. We have learned, I think, from some of the errors of those developments. The situation was that we had just a small number of youths acting in a way that was really terrorising the area, and not only the area but were also terrorising public utilities and public services to such an extent that a mid-week public meeting was called at very short notice and it was attended by 80-odd people. A number of businesses attended this meeting, as well as welfare officers plus a number of politicians.

The people were annoyed because they were not able to get government representatives to attend but there was an apology from Michelle O'Byrne's office saying she was attending to another activity and that was accepted. A strong position was put forward from that meeting that this is not just a Ravenswood situation which they need to get control of. Rather, it very much involves the State Government, local government and to some extent the Federal Government.

People said that sometimes those areas are forgotten. They looked at their position in relation to others in and around Launceston, as well as around this, areas that are somewhat isolated from the larger towns where youth do have facilities, do have entertainment, do have activities that they can become involved and engaged in. Ravenswood caters well for the younger age groups, up to about eight or 10.

After that there is absolutely nothing in the Ravenswood area for these youth, except for a skate park. There are no programs, no other things for them to get involved in. I went to Ravenswood late one night with a member of the House of Assembly, Mr Peter Gutwein, and we spoke to a number of these youth. They are screaming out for help, they are wanting support. What they said was that they just want something to do. They said they were sick of a skate park; you cannot skate all night long every night and you cannot skate from five o'clock in the afternoon or from the time that school comes out in the afternoon until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. They added, 'And you don't really care'. That hurt because we do care, but sometimes we do not listen to them.

That is the important issue and that is what came to of the public meeting. The first public meeting was very vocal with people saying that we need to bulldoze the skate park, we need to rule these youth with an iron hand, in fact one person even suggested that we manacle them and put them in the mall to get some form of publicity to try to get these kids to stop this behaviour. These people were really talking this issue up in that vein. They were talking about vigilante groups taking the law into their own hands and sorting this out. At another meeting last week attended by 100 people, they were even more agitated and called on all levels of government to get in and help them settle this situation.

I am pleased to be able to say that Metro have now put their services back on and full taxi services have also been reinstated. Let us hope that it continues. But what they want is the State Government, local government and Federal Government to come together to supply them with the finances for a full-time welfare officer to work with these youth. We have had them previously, but money runs out and they are removed.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - I heard recently that the youth worker was funded through the Affordable Housing Strategy funds.

Mr DEAN - You are right.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - It is probably not the right way for that to be funded.

Mr DEAN - It is not. But what I want to say here is we need to do that, we need to get that funding, we need to provide them with a zone, a lighthouse similar to what they have at Devonport or some premises which they can call their own and have some of the activities that they want to be involved in. It is a plea for help and support.