Page 1212 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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So that takes me, Mr Speaker, to the Edmonds report, which I and my colleagues looked at during the consideration of the casino proposal. We also spoke at some length to Mr Edmonds, who actually produced that report for the Government. Unfortunately, the Edmonds report, I would suggest, suffers from this kind of narrow vision in relation to the future for the arts in Canberra. It does little more, I would suggest, than prove what it set out to prove, which is that Canberra should have three theatres, a library and an art gallery on that particular site, and it identifies the types of theatres that should go on that particular site.
It was said in its terms of reference that it was supposed to consider what we have in Canberra in relation to the needs of the cultural community. However, I would suggest that it paid only lip-service to that part of its terms of reference, and that is an attitude that has been clearly acknowledged by those thinking people in the arts community in Canberra at the moment. It is probably not the first report to have chased conclusions which were already quite clear because of its terms of reference, but it is not a report which I would want to place any faith in as a basis for determining Canberra's cultural needs.
What the arts community is concerned about in Canberra at the moment is being told by this minority Government opposite, "This is what you are going to have in section 19". Despite what happened and the discussions that went on during the Edmonds report, they did not feel that an appropriate assessment had been made of the real needs of Canberra in this particular area, and what they are really concerned about is a fait accompli: "This is what we are going to build now; that is it; end of section". I would suggest that that is not appropriate, and that is why this motion has been put forward today and that is why it is proposed to refer this matter to the select committee in the way I have.
The reason for my own lack of faith in the Edmonds report is its belief in simple and certain answers. I am sure the Chief Minister would acknowledge that arts and culture anywhere in the world are not that simple. Sometimes we possibly wish they were, but they are not. You only have to look at the history of the Australia Council to see that. There is an enormous range of needs that have to be faced in funding or assisting cultural groups.
Australia, as has often been said, is a country without any culture because of our limited history. The cities of Europe are claimed to have a greater culture and background than we have. That is so, Mr Speaker, because they have been at it much longer than we have. But we in Australia in the last 200 years of European settlement have developed our own culture and we have also taken some aspects of the Aboriginal culture to our hearts.
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