Page 935 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 26 July 1989
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the use and symbolism the centre and its location require. No-one expects the Federal Government to totally fund such a project. However, there is a clear responsibility to provide some financial input into such an important project, especially as it will be a major attraction in the year we celebrate the bicentenary of federalism in Australia.
The needs of the time, Mr Speaker, require us to look ahead and not rely on the easy money provided by this project in its current format. Remember, it is those on the end of a boom who miss out. Concrete Constructions, I would suggest, would probably be thinking that at this very moment. This casino boom has long since passed us by. It is necessary to go out into the marketplace and seek to anticipate what the next boom might be and ensure that we in this city are ready to take up the challenge of new ideas and concepts.
The advertising on the TV for the Adelaide casino uses the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in its symbolic representation of the riches one can expect to find there. However, we really know that rainbows are never permanent and have a nasty habit of fading away.
I urge you all not to be fooled by the easy money options we are being sold. I believed at the start of this exercise that the figures did not add up and that there were better and more innovative ways to improve our economy. The committee deliberations have not substantially changed my mind. I therefore urge my fellow members to give the Government and its advisers one more chance to come up with some long-term projects for development and innovation without the need to sell such a prestige site for a casino and a hotel. In my book, the Government still has some work to do before it reaches its grade.
MR WOOD (11.06): Mr Speaker, the fact that this document was handed to us hot from the photocopiers indicates the pressure under which it was presented, and our compliments go to those people who accommodated all circumstances to do that. Perhaps I should first declare my interest, or in some respects my lack of it. I am not inherently a gambler. I have tried to think what I may have spent last year on gambling, and apart from the never-ending purchase of raffle tickets I doubt I would have spent more than about $25, and that being on poker machines and lotto tickets.
I can also say that I wagered $5 at one of the casinos I visited, and lost. So I am not particularly a gambler, but I am not opposed to gambling. I think, in these days of economic stress, money invested in gambling might be more productively used, but I am not against the concept of gambling. Perhaps that is because it is simply a fact of life; it is all around us, and has been for as long as I have been in Australia.
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