Page 1220 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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I do not raise that as a serious issue. I do not think it is feasible to bring the reporting date any further forward, because we would not really be able to achieve the sort of depth of analysis that Mr Wood has referred to in this inquiry.
So, broadly speaking, I welcome the terms of this inquiry. It is very clear that a review needs to occur, particularly as far as library facilities are concerned. I think that is even more apparent when one looks at what is provided at the present time by the National Library and compares it with what is provided in the ACT Civic centre. There are two very different things there. In fact, it may be that at some point in the near future we need to transfer some of what occurs in the National Library to some other place, probably the Civic centre of Canberra.
At the present time the National Library provides a service which is provided in other places in Australia, I understand, by State libraries; for example, the Mitchell Library in Sydney. That is a reference service to local business and institutional bodies concerning their work. I understand that that is generally provided on a fee for service basis. A company wanting to know, for example, about the history of a particular aspect of the community could ring the library and seek information, and the library would provide it and would charge the particular company for having found that information.
That service, as I mentioned, is provided at the present time for the business community of Canberra by the National Library. But that is not, obviously, the function of a national library. I am led to believe, and I have no reason to doubt this, that that service may not for much longer be provided. It may be incumbent on us, therefore, to seek to replace that service within the facilities of the ACT. It would be, I think, fairly obvious that that facility ought to be provided in the central part of Canberra, in the central business district. I am not sure when this might be occurring but I believe it cannot be discounted as something which might occur in the fairly near future.
I want to refer to a letter which appeared in the Canberra Times last Friday, which was from the president of the Australian Library and Information Service, which suggested that I had said that the library was a peripheral part of the cultural facilities to be provided on section 19, that it was something we could do "if the money was left over". That letter, unfortunately, was based on a misreading of an earlier article in the Canberra Times. I want to put it on the record that the quote that was attributed to me in that letter in fact was a quote attributed in the article of one week earlier to an anonymous Government spokesperson. I have never said that there should be some second grading or second rating for those library facilities on section 19. In my view and, I hope, the view of the Liberal Party,
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