Page 1720 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 30 April 1991
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There are to be two sites for those spaces; one in Dickson for, if you like, the clean or non-industrial artists, and another at Mitchell, the first sod of which I turned a couple of weeks ago, for the industrial-type artists. Those spaces are extremely important. There simply are not enough spaces of that kind in the ACT. It is important for the Government to make those sorts of spaces available. Unfortunately, it is not possible to create those sorts of spaces out of the private market because, quite simply, it is very hard, particularly for establishing artists, to find the money to support the rent necessary for large studios, particularly of the kind needed by sculptors and metalwork artists and so on.
I do encourage members to visit one of those two sites. They are both interesting places and will become more interesting as time goes by. I want to particularly thank the reference groups and ANCA itself for the work that they have done in establishing this important concept. Many months of very hard work has gone into those projects and I am sure that that hard work will be paid off when the ACT gains two very significant cultural assets as a result of that work.
Victims' Rights
MR STEFANIAK (9.58): I rise to mention a topic which I think is most apt, given that it was raised, and slightly incorrectly raised, by Mr Connolly. It is particularly apt because we do have the ACT Community Law Reform Committee here tonight, and one of their current inquiries is into the most important area of victims and victims' rights. It is pleasing to see that Mr Connolly, on behalf of the Labor Party, has probably turned them around and now they are fully supportive of looking after victims' rights, but he is wrong in saying that it is their initiative.
I would point out to members and to Mr Connolly that in October 1988 my party passed a police and justice policy which had four clauses in relation to victims' rights - clauses 26 to 29. We, of course, are in favour of victim impact statements and the rights of victims being addressed, and we have been for some three years now. The Labor Party has been a bit tardy in this regard. In 1989, when the Follett Government was in power in this Assembly, I went to see the then Chief Minister to try to see whether she would introduce victim impact statements and similar measures to assist victims into courts.
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