Page 4095 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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lyric theatre should not be built in Canberra, and the committee looked at other ways in which such a complex could be built. Those are addressed in the report.
For this Assembly to embark upon building a 2,000-seat lyric theatre really was not on; the numbers in Canberra simply would not justify that. We gained that idea fairly early in the piece when we visited the cities I have mentioned and looked at their operations. Running a theatre, especially a large theatre, is a very costly business. I think the complex in Melbourne is probably the most cost-effective, and it still gets back only about 83 per cent or so of the money needed to build and run it. Even in the larger cities occupancy rates are not perhaps as high as the managers of those theatre complexes would wish.
As the chairman indicated, Mr Speaker, we prepared this report separately to whatever happens to section 19, although I suppose we had to be mindful of the possibilities of what might happen in relation to section 19, hence some of the recommendations we made at times were prefaced by what could happen on section 19. In relation to the lyric theatre - points 3.18 to 3.23 - we looked at the possibility of what could occur there in the future and we supported the views expressed by the manager of the Canberra Theatre in the evidence he gave before the committee. He said that one of the committee's tasks should be to set the parameters for a blueprint for a future theatre development in the Territory. We were informed that the complex as a whole should be planned, and that was certainly a view the committee supported. Although it is our view that a large lyric theatre cannot be sustained by the Territory at this point in the Territory's development, that does not preclude the Government from making a serious long-term commitment to a lyric theatre; nor does it prevent important planning decisions being made now.
There were, however, not only local but also national needs that have to be addressed. Canberra is, after all, the national capital, and we gave some detailed consideration to the national aspects of the performing arts in the Territory. We were surprised to learn that Canberra is one of the few national capitals not to have a national performing arts venue of some kind. The committee was concerned about this lack of a national venue, and we believe that perhaps the Territory Government should approach the Commonwealth Government concerning the construction and maintenance of a national lyric theatre in the Territory. This would provide the national performing arts venue that is currently lacking in the Australian cultural scene, and a facility for all Australians, especially the over one million tourists that visit our national capital each year. Accordingly, we recommend that the Government ask the Commonwealth Government to construct
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