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Mr MIKE BAIRD (Manly) [5.42 p.m.]: Tonight I share with the House details of an announcement the Government made in my electorate today about the Manly Community Safety Partnership. Whilst we welcome the tenets of that announcement and appreciate a whole-of-government response and attention to the problem of assaults and alcohol-related violence in my community, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, the process has not been what I would call in the spirit of the partnership it is supposed to establish.
It is disappointing that the Minister made a decision to come into the electorate without consulting not only me but particularly Manly Council, which is a critical player and has done a huge amount of work to address this problem in the past few years.
I register that disappointment but put it aside in the hope that this is not just an attempt to grab headlines for the nightly news and that it is a genuine attempt to attack a real problem in my community. If the Government comes with the intent of solving these problems—and from my discussions with senior members of the Government I believe it does—then we welcome it. However, there are certain things that we would ask that this partnership consider as a matter of priority.
Almost a year ago I spoke in this Chamber on the Liquor Legislation Amendment Bill. It was disappointing at that time that the Government had not consulted key stakeholders such as the Manly Liquor Accord, which governs events in the Manly community that are related to alcohol and associated safety and transport issues. Many measures were introduced at that time, which saw various changes to what has transpired in the past 12 months. However, I believe we can all agree that they have not worked. I said in debate on the bill a year ago:
We urge the Government to recognise the importance of consultation and cooperation in achieving meaningful reform of the liquor industry and, most importantly, achieving outcomes. It is only through genuine cooperation between the licensees, police, council and the local business precinct that Manly has started to have significant success in reducing alcohol-related violence. In the three months preceding the passing of the Liquor Legislation Amendment Bill, the number of assaults had decreased. My hope is that the Manly Community Safety Partnership is an endorsement of the plan that was in place before the legislation came in and is an opportunity for licensees, council, local police and businesses to go about supporting the outcome and trying to deliver a uniform approach to tackling this issue for at least 12 months, if not 24 months, to see if we can continue the trend of decreasing assaults. People are sick of continued assaults in the area.
We started to achieve gains in 2007-08 with the adoption of the Venue Management Plan for Manly, which appears to have key tenets in the announcement of the Minister today. Crime statistics produced by the Auditor-General show that while alcohol-related assaults have doubled in the past decade across the State such incidents have stabilised in Manly. We support the Manly Venue Management Plan.
We believe that the closing times of venues have to be addressed. The community is very concerned about closing times and my position with licensees is clear: they should cease the serving of alcohol at 2.00 a.m. and have a 2.30 a.m. close. During the three months we ran with that we started to see results with reduced assaults and improved community amenity outcomes.
We welcome any moves that aim to reduce alcohol-related crime in my community, and I can attest that fact by the many people who walk through my door to raise the issue with me and by the many people who write to me about their concerns. There is no doubt that a lot of work has been done, and I pay tribute to the local police, the council, the licensees, the Manly Liquor Accord and the various business groups who worked to put together a plan that was working. We ask that that plan be brought forward.
We hope that this is not just a measure to get around my call for a liquor licence ban, which I will continue to call for, and we ask the partnership to consider a liquor licence ban for a 12-month or 24-month period while we try to stabilise the assaults. We think there should be a targeting of pre-fuelling, which is a problem in the area. We also think the Ministry of Transport should work constructively on transport issues. We certainly endorse the idea of the partnership but we hope that a whole-of-government response follows, not just words.
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