Page 4648 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 27 November 1990
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said to her by the Arts Development Board for last year's funding. She had the right and she exercised the right to apply her own judgment, and if that is the case one has to accept the argument that governments have to consider the reality of funding applications, the nature of the background of those applications and the capacity of the community to bear the totality of those grants in any given year.
Mr Speaker, I have to say that it strikes me that the Community Development Fund is a mechanism designed for a bygone era. The Community Development Fund is a device applicable in a community like that which existed before self-government in the ACT. It is not an appropriate mechanism in a period where the ACT governs itself. It is an anachronism. This Government's Bill to abolish the Community Development Fund is, therefore, entirely appropriate.
The idea of hands-off funding was a device used by Federal governments which were uninterested in these sorts of affairs at this level, which preferred to avoid the controversies entailed in making hard decisions about community organisations and their funding, and preferred instead to establish mechanisms to offshore those sorts of decisions. They were not designed as protections for those organisations. Let us get something quite clear. They were not protections for those organisations; they were devices to take the heat off Federal governments that were not interested enough to make decisions for themselves. Now, that has changed. We live in an era when we govern ourselves, when the ACT has the responsibility of making these decisions, and governments of whatever persuasion have to examine the implications of those decisions rather than saying that we have a corpus of money put to one side and we cannot tamper with or modify the amount of money that contributes to that corpus.
The reality is, once again, very different from what the Opposition pretends that it is in respect of funding of community organisations. I think Mr Wood made a reference to the fact that we were not going to project beyond the 1991 year. Well, Mr Wood got it wrong. If he reads the Chief Minister's presentation speech on this matter he will see, very clearly, that we talk about giving a commitment therein to funding allocated to recurrent programs being maintained at 1989-90 levels, maintained in real terms in 1990-91 and in 1991-92. That is a very real commitment by this Government. It is one which we will stand by, and those opposite can pretend all they like that they have evidence that this will not be the case. I can only say that they are believing their own propaganda once again.
The claims of cuts to community organisations are hysterical. They feed on themselves. They are designed to play on the fears of people who believe that what these people opposite say to them might be true. I have to say to those people: If you believe those opposite you are sorely deluded and you will come to grief.
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