Page 3973 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 December 2021
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MR PETTERSSON (Yerrabi) (3.29), in reply: It is with great pleasure that I rise to close this debate. I thought today’s motion was going to be an inclusive motion on which all members of Yerrabi would come into this place and speak to the important issue that is the Gungahlin cinema. Unfortunately, not every member got the memo. It seems that some members discovered the Hansard website recently and thought that they were making a significant contribution to the debate about the future of the Gungahlin town centre by trawling Hansard archives to make a point.
Unfortunately, that is not how you win hearts and minds in Gungahlin. If you want to win hearts and minds in Gungahlin, what you do is you speak to the issues that they care about, which is why I brought forward this motion. The people of Gungahlin are frustrated that they are still waiting for their cinema.
I listened with great, great focus to what the Canberra Liberals members had to say, because the residents of Gungahlin are singularly focused on getting a cinema built. Seemingly, the Canberra Liberals are thinking of the softest way they can say something about the cinema without offending a property developer. Seemingly, the only reason the Canberra Liberals exist in this place is to say nice things about property developers. There is no chance that members of this place on the opposition benches would say something that would reflect negatively on a property developer, even when the residents of Gungahlin are waiting. They are waiting for a property developer to get their act together and build a cinema. I hope that one day the members of the Canberra Liberals can grow a spine and say something about a property developer who is not delivering what they intended to deliver.
I know the residents of Gungahlin are frustrated. They are frustrated that this has taken so long. The government is not perfect in this story, I will admit that. However, we are committed to getting this done, which is why encouraging the government to meet with these developers to find out what the hold-up is and to find how we can resolve this impasse is a good thing.
I am glad that all members will vote in support of that today, because Gungahlin residents deserve entertainment options in their town centre. Young people need somewhere to go; they need entertainment options in their town centre. I am sure all the Yerrabi members can speak to this as well but, for members that do not hang out in the Gungahlin town centre too often, if you hang out at the front of McDonald’s or KFC after school, that is where all the schoolkids hang out, because there is nowhere else for them to hang out. And if they are not hanging out there, they are doing mainys up Hibberson Street between the different supermarkets.
I think we can do something better for the youngsters in Gungahlin. I think we can do something better for the adults of Gungahlin that are looking for something to do in the evening, maybe on the weekend, with the family. So I am excited for a cinema to open up in Gungahlin town centre. I do not just want to see a cinema; I also want to see hospitality and retail come to Gungahlin town centre, because we need a holistic approach in making Gungahlin a town centre that people want to come to.
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