Page 2160 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 June 1990
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The importance of the facility is reflected by the large membership of the ACT Council of Cultural Societies that has been in the centre since 1966. It has a membership of approximately 20,000; that includes the members of the 70 or so societies that make up the council. We recognise that the centre provides support to a broad spectrum of the Canberra population including disadvantaged groups such as the aged, migrants, females, unemployed youths and the handicapped. Nothing that has occurred in the life of this Government in any way detracts from the support given to these groups.
It is extremely easy for throwaway lines to be hurled around this chamber, saying that because of some perceived lack of directness or some perceived period of uncertainty - generated largely by the Opposition - the Government suddenly has no interest in these people; it wants to destroy the viability of these groups; the Government is no longer concerned about providing services such as the Griffin Centre's services. These statements, which my colleague Mr Duby described as Goebbels statements, really have no place in this Assembly. They have no place in a community which is anxious about changes being brought into this community as a result of the onset of self-government.
It might be easy and satisfying in a short-term sense for people to make these kinds of statements and to have people reacting in a way to these statements which please the short-term political gains of particular parties in this Assembly, but ultimately this reflects on self-government. It reflects on the prestige with which democracy, as it has manifested itself in the ACT, proceeds in this Territory.
Mr Moore: From you and your group?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Moore, I am very pleased to be criticised for things that we do wrong - I have no doubt about that - but I expect some support for things we do right. What we are doing about the Griffin Centre is right. It is a major settling of uncertainty about the future of that centre, and I think we deserve to be congratulated, not condemned, for this particular course of action.
Our commitment is quite evident in what the Chief Minister said yesterday. I think the Opposition would do well to get behind the Government and support the proposals announced by the Chief Minister and ensure that the future of the centre is not further destabilised by the sorts of comments and remarks made in this place.
MR MOORE (12.04): Mr Speaker, it would be wonderful for me to be able to get behind this announcement by the Chief Minister and say what a good job it is. It appears to be a successful start, but that will change. It is an insidious attempt by this Government to use the community centre as a way of further developing Civic and to do so in a manner that is inconsistent with the Metropolitan Policy Plan of
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