Page 1336 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 16 April 1991
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MRS GRASSBY: As to the last two recommendations of the report - those being paragraphs 3.8 and 3.11 - they naturally follow from the first. Should Stage '88 not be fenced, then it appears only appropriate, given the commercial responsibilities of the Canberra Theatre Centre, who are the current managers, that this pass to the Department of Urban Services. That is where I feel it should be.
Given this Department's current responsibilities with public facilities such as Lanyon Homestead, the Nolan Gallery, and other parts of Canberra, this decision is clearly a sound one, as the Department of Urban Services does a very good job in looking after all these other areas. Therefore, Stage '88 should be left with the Department of Urban Services.
The last recommendation is also a sound recommendation. It is to provide the Department of Urban Services with the remaining $177,000 from the initial Commonwealth grant and to have that department use that financial allocation on minor works for Stage '88 which will make it cheaper to run and maintain. The last recommendation, in this time of budgetary restraint, is clearly one of substance. I am sure that Mr Duby will be very happy to have $177,000 to use on Stage '88, and I recommend that it be put there. In closing, I can only say that the report, in my opinion, is a sound one. I look forward to the adoption of its recommendations.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (9.14): I am always delighted to allow Mrs Grassby to go first, as the gentleman that I am.
Mrs Grassby: And a scholar?
MR HUMPHRIES: And a scholar. Undoubtedly, also a scholar. Mr Speaker, tonight I will be providing the Alliance Government's response to the Standing Committee on Planning, Development and Infrastructure Report No. 3 concerning provision of fencing for Stage '88. Stage '88, Canberra's premier outdoor performance venue, was a bicentennial gift from the Commonwealth Government to the people of Canberra. In a media statement of 24 December 1986, the then Minister for Territories, Gordon Scholes, said:
The Bicentennial Commemorative Music Bowl will be constructed on a site in Commonwealth Park. The $1.4m project to be funded by the Commonwealth/State Bicentennial program will provide an outdoor performance area in an attractive natural setting.
Mr Scholes also noted that the former ACT House of Assembly had considered the matter in detail and had undertaken a process of public consultation before recommending the project. On Saturday, 12 March 1988, Canberra Day, in a
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