Page 2039 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 8 September 1992
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building a grand, even magnificent, new parliament building. Victoria is in the process of planning a refurbishment of its ancient and venerable, if overcrowded, State Parliament building. New South Wales has gone through many of the issues which were before our committee, and Tasmania has, in the past few years, sought to wind back a refurbishment of its State Parliament building, which was undertaken in the 1960s and which has not met with universal acclaim.
As well as this, there is, accumulated in the ACT and elsewhere, a considerable body of specific information arising from the design and development of the new Parliament House. We have been able, both formally and informally, to derive lessons from that. It has been the good fortune of our committee to observe a wide range of processes for creating a new Assembly, going from the most expensive and grand to the quite modest. This has led us to believe that the South Building refurbishment will quite readily provide us with modest and appropriate accommodation in the most cost-effective manner.
In addition to the specific consultations referred to above, the committee has been at pains to seek opinions from all those who wish to participate. In particular, we have been at pains to make sure that the community of the ACT has been offered ample opportunity to contribute to our deliberations. On a number of occasions, through the press, we have invited the public to make submissions to the committee, and a wide range of groups have availed themselves of this opportunity. I believe that this process was important in itself and, on reflection, I can advise the Assembly that the process produced a great deal of information which was of direct relevance to the task before the committee.
In total, 35 submissions were received. We are grateful, and I wish to acknowledge all those who took the trouble to write to us, to appear before the committee and to express their views, both publicly and privately. I would single out in this context the significant help which we received from a wide range of business groups and community groups and from the public service. I believe that, with the aid of this consultative process, we have arrived at a recommendation which will satisfy the needs of the community and will satisfy the needs of the Australian Capital Territory.
In my capacity as Speaker I have been keen to ensure that the Assembly to which we will move will have good access for the general public and that it will have ample public galleries. I repeat my belief that this is a house of the people and that it will be truly owned and appreciated by the community if they are afforded ready, frequent and easy access to it. However, I have, through the committee process, also been keen to ensure that the needs of all the political groups who must have access to the Assembly have been appropriately catered for and that the needs of staff who will work in the Assembly have not been overlooked.
Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, this process has been sufficient to our needs to date. However, I draw the attention of the Assembly to the recommendation that there be a steering committee set up to carry on the work of the Administration and Procedures Committee, should this report be adopted by the Assembly. Consultation has been a keynote of our activities to date and it must continue if the new Assembly is to be completed on time and if it is to fully meet all the needs of those who will use it and do so, as I have said, in a cost-effective manner.
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