Page 4096 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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and maintain a national lyric theatre, and that the Government also encourage any proposal to elicit national or local support for the development of a national lyric theatre.
That, of course, leaves open some of the proposals floating about in relation to section 19, should those proposals still be there. But the bottom line is certainly that a lyric theatre is something the Territory itself simply cannot afford. I am not going to dwell on any other part of the report, because Dr Kinloch is going to speak on some other specific areas and Bill Wood has already given a broad overview. But I will talk briefly about the Childers Street theatre.
This is a very popular little theatre situated in an area of Canberra that logically at some future stage is a prime candidate for redevelopment. It is sitting on prime real estate, and the committee appreciated that perhaps that area would be redeveloped not before too long, simply because of where it is. Accordingly, we saw the need for that theatre to be refurbished but that should be done at minimal cost and it should be available for use by community theatre groups. We felt it best that the management of that theatre should be vested in a management committee, comprising members of those groups using the theatre. As an interim measure, that theatre should be made available for use by community theatre groups, subject to the appropriate fire and safety regulations and by-laws which are applicable to that complex. The cost, I think, should be minimal in relation to refurbishing that theatre, because in all probability at some future stage those buildings there will be demolished. Some very good redevelopment could go on there, and I would imagine that in the long term whatever redevelopment took place would incorporate a small theatre to replace the existing Childers Street theatre.
The committee will continue to work in relation to other cultural facilities to be provided for the Territory. I look forward to participating further in the committee, and to our next report in relation to other cultural facilities.
DR KINLOCH (10.49): I join with Mr Wood and Mr Stefaniak in thanking our staff, especially, of course, Ron Owens. We all felt a great sense of involvement in this project, not least, of course, because we spent many hours on the road together. I want to stress that, although we take the greatest interest in all committees. The three of us, with our committee secretary, felt very much concerned, as we went from place to place, about what lay ahead for the future of the arts facilities in the ACT. To some degree we joked about this; we had visions of the Bill Wood theatre and the Bill Stefaniak library, and perhaps the Hector Kinloch toilet block, but we were thinking about the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. In due course, what we are on about is what this Territory, this city,
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