Mr TONY SMITH(8.20 p.m.) —The spiralling levels of criminal activity in society are an absolute scourge on society and more and more young people have ended up on that incredibly dangerous path to destruction by being involved with the drug culture. The Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill is in two parts, as has been mentioned already. In addressing the issues of criminal activity generally, I wish to broaden the debate a little.

I start by referring to the fact that the bill seeks to foster cooperation between countries, in particular providing the motivation to foreign countries to assist in the recovery of assets in their jurisdiction which are subject to forfeiture under Australian legislation. It also seeks to provide that moneys seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act are paid into consolidated revenue.

As I indicated, the drug problem is a very serious one. I intend to focus particularly on it because I think it is necessary to draw on one's experience here, and I have to say that my experience with the criminal courts in legal practice was fairly extensive. A great percentage of those who were involved in what you could call the criminal line were young people who, unfortunately, started out by smoking joints.

I have never met a young person who has ended up a drug addict, a wrecked individual, who started on heroin. They always started on marijuana. I think it is important for the House to remember this, because there are a lot of very interesting theories around about marijuana, particularly those which say, `It's a recreational drug which does no harm. It's harmless and victimless. It really is something that should now be decriminalised, be accepted in society, and so forth.'

I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker—and I need to re-emphasise this—that, of all the people whom I acted for who had serious drug offences that were being considered by the court, not one ever started on hard drugs. They all started on marijuana and, from there, they went on the inevitable downward spiral.

Concomitant with the use of drugs and the increasing addiction to hard drugs on that spiral is the combination of offences that arise in order to feed that habit. It is impossible to feed these habits on the unemployment benefit. It is impossible to feed the habits on a basic job. So the insatiable desire to have an addiction satisfied invariably leads to extra criminal activities. That is the scourge. The scourge starts small but ends big and invariably, along the way, a lot of innocent people are hurt.

It is drugs that addle the brain. We know that. The prolonged use of marijuana befuddles the intellect. Do not ever let the opposite be said. I do not care what the figures say. I have acted for many people who have smoked marijuana for years, and they are slow—slow of thought and slow of action. Those who are heavily addicted to marijuana cannot really keep a job. It is just not possible. The brain cells are not just temporarily dulled; they are destroyed. So I really want to give the lie to that theory from practical experience of what I have seen. Many addicts have said to me, in a very regretful way, that they wish they had never had their first joint because, `Look at me now.'

It is important to realise what the use of drugs does along the way—particularly in relation to the property crimes that can occur and the effect that has on the whole of society. I, unfortunately, have had plenty of evidence of that in my electorate, with a very high level of breaking and entering. Indeed, recent figures suggest that, in the metropolitan north area of Brisbane—which basically encompasses my electorate—the number of breaking and entering crimes reported in 1994-95 was 7,198, and in 1995-96, it was 7,870.

The clean-up rate of those particular offences is 12 per cent. I am not making any criticism of the police in relation to that. It is a difficult crime to detect and a difficult crime to obtain convictions on. What that figure does show is the level of harm that it occasions in the community. More often than not, as I have said, those responsible for perpetrating these sorts of offences are trying to feed a drug habit.

It is important to realise that the people who are running these drug operations are not the people out there selling. I am sure enforcement authorities realise that, but it is important for the House and the people of Australia to realise that you do not see people in suits selling heroin on the streets. They need the underlings to do it, and those underlings are the people out there who are frequently unemployed, without a home to live in, without a job, without a sense of self-worth and without parents who love them. Consequently, they finish up in the situation where they become the people who do the distribution. The real dirty work is done by the big time operators who, unfortunately, rarely seem to get caught.

Those big time operators cannot exist without those people down there—the underlings—and I think it is important to realise that. If we are going to attempt to address the problem, we have to realise that it is a bottom end problem rather than a top end one.

I mentioned earlier some of the property offences, and breaking and entering was one. Unfortunately, figures show that that crime has increased over the past year by something like 18 per cent. In these particular offences, the offenders are generally aged between 15 and 19. Again, that is a very sad statistic. Usually they are males, with about eight per cent being females. So the preponderance of evidence suggests that those involved in this activity are very young people, many of whom are juveniles—some younger than that, I might add—and male. What can be done about it?

In looking at the problem of the distribution of the drugs that have frequently come in here from overseas, there is no doubt that if we were able to address the old adage, `Where there are idle hands, there is mischief that can be done' by looking very carefully at programs that may assist young people at the grassroots, we would go some way to addressing the problem overall.

I know the honourable member for Batman (Mr Martin Ferguson) is very supportive of the CDEP scheme. I have seen how well that scheme worked at Cherbourg where, unfortunately, the level of offending has been very high. I can tell you this: when that scheme has been in operation, I have never seen a more satisfied group of young Aboriginal people than those working on that scheme, because they have got something to do. They are learning skills, building fences and doing other things. That program is able in a sense to imbue in those people a work ethic which addresses the offending behaviour. I am not trying to single out Cherbourg as being an area where Aboriginal people offend any more than anywhere else, but it has to be recognised that over the years there has been little work of a productive or real nature done in that area. Figures suggesting that there had been a significant downturn in property offences were quite clearly related to the fact that so many of these young people were taking part in this scheme.

The question really is: if it is good enough for Aboriginal people in those communities, why don't we look at a similar scheme for young people in the general and wider community? While initially there might be some reaction such as, `This sounds a bit like civil conscription,' it is a problem that we cannot underestimate. People have had their homes violated by those who commit these break-ins. It is something that will touch most people during their lifetimes. The figures suggest that at some stage of your life somebody is going to break into your home and disturb or interfere with your property. So it is a problem of quite epidemic proportions.

Do we really address the problem by having more police and spending more taxpayers' money? Certainly we do need more police; I am not saying that we do not. But we are top ending the problem all the time instead of bottom ending the problem. We need to start looking at the bottom end of the problem, at the large scale movement and distribution of drugs from overseas and where it is happening on the street. We need to try to address the offending behaviour, and to do so without pussyfooting around.

I am very critical of some of the juvenile justice legislation that has been passed in recent years in Queensland. I have no difficulty at all with the issue of protecting a young person who commits an offence that is an aberration, perhaps even a person who slips into committing a second offence. But to have legislation that protects the identity of repetitive offenders is absurd.

The community has got to be realistic about this matter. As one of the local police officers said to me recently, the moment a group of young people that had been offending in a particular area were incarcerated, the figures went down. As soon as they were released, the figures went back up. Yet under the then Juvenile Justice Act, if the police officer revealed to anybody in the street that they had to be careful with that group of people because they were known offenders, he would be committing an offence. We cannot have those sorts of silly ideas about how we should deal with this problem. We have to have a firm hand, and at the same time a kind and directing hand, in trying to solve the problem for these people.

If these people were working they would not have the time to spend on these nefarious activities. One only has to look at the amount of graffiti in Canberra. If the people responsible for this graffiti were working, how could they go around half the night spraying things? It is as simple as that. You could not do it. The problem gets back to addressing what we can do about having these young people in work. If we can organise a CDEP scheme for young Aboriginals in Cherbourg, why can't we start looking very seriously at providing schemes—albeit on a modest scale—to give these people work which, in turn, will address the offending behaviour.

In my electorate, six young fellows, who were really on the edge, who nobody really wanted to touch, came along to the Bunya Bunya youth training program. The program also takes women, but this particular group involved six young men, all of whom had difficulties in their home life and had been involved in activity which was less than socially acceptable. They did a 12-week course which trained them in rural skills such as horse riding, roping, fencing, tractor work, the use of a chainsaw and camping. In a short time these young men were given some skills they could take somewhere and utilise. I am pleased to say that all six young men got jobs out in the far flung areas of Australia. They have all been placed in a job. I am delighted to say that the outcome of that scheme has been a very great success. So it can be done.

It is those groups of people that we must not forget about in addressing this overall problem, which is bound up with the level of drugs that have come into the community and that this bill is trying to address on a wider scale. We must turn our attention to the bottom end of the problem where the young people are; we must address the availability of drugs on the street and their distribution. That must be done by giving young people some hope for the future, particularly through employment and training.

I believe that many of these people need to be given that start. They also need to be treated with firmness. Some of the trainers have done a great job with young people—some of them are particularly hard men themselves and have perhaps come up through the school of hard knocks. When they train these young people, while it is difficult at first, generally speaking, they are able to direct them along the appropriate path. In the case of the program I mentioned, there was a really great outcome.

To sum up, I support the bill. I am mindful of the criticisms that have been made by the opposition in relation to funding. There have been a number of responses to that criticism in relation to the spending aspect. I do not wish to turn to those. All I wish to say is that the bill is a good first step in the direction that should be taken in this area. Overall, I would like to think that we will address the particular problems by getting to the source. Frequently, the source is those groups of young people who have got nothing to do and who unfortunately turn their attention to things that lead to the sort of horror and interference that can occur. People come home from work to find their houses broken into and their property stolen. Frequently, goods with sentimental value have been removed—a lifetime's collection either destroyed or taken away. That, in itself, builds up enormous resentment and calls for greater police power. Perhaps if we address the problem at its source, we can solve it. I oppose the amendment moved by the honourable member for Banks. I support the bill.