Page 2159 - Week 08 - Thursday, 10 September 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
That, I believe, was necessary. Unless that had been done it would have been very difficult to convince the community that what we are proposing here is, in fact, the best option. That review of other options was, in my view, quite necessary.
I do not have any great concerns about most of the recommendations. There are one or two, however, that I would like to comment on. I notice that one of them states:
... the impact of electorate offices on requirements in South Building should be assessed and taken into account in its redesign and refurbishment.
That begs the question: What electorate offices? No member of the Assembly currently has one. I know of no proposal for members to have electorate offices, so I wonder what was behind that particular recommendation. Is there a proposal amongst the hidden recesses of the Government somewhere to establish electorate offices for members? If that is so, I would be interested to know about it.
Paragraph 9.14 is interesting. It states:
The Committee recommends that:
the area on the ground floor reserved for future use be used in the present as exhibition and display space by community groups.
That is an interesting one, but I would suspect that there are many pitfalls in that. Who is going to allocate the space, and on what basis? On what conditions is space going to be made available to the community? It is going to be limited.
I am sure that there will be a great number of possible applicants. Some will be favoured by space in the legislative building and others will not. I think that is likely to generate some ill will amongst the community groups vying for that space and, of course, it has to be made perfectly clear to them all that one day they are going to be asked to leave. If people are put into accommodation like that and are there for some years, it will be very difficult to then say, "Well, sorry, old chap; we know that you have been here for five or seven or eight or nine years; but it is time to go, and we do not have alternative accommodation for you". That is a matter that needs to be considered. If a community group is given space in the Assembly building there will be a presumption in the future, when they are asked to leave, that the Government will find alternative accommodation for them. That may well generate problems for the future.
I obliquely referred to the final recommendation the other day, Madam Speaker. It says that there should be a Speaker's Committee, comprising members of the Administration and Procedures Committee, that will liaise with stakeholders, including the secretariat, the unions, the library, and others. I said, "What about members?". It was suggested that members are represented because of the membership of the Administration and Procedures Committee. I suggest that that is not correct. I, as an individual member of this Assembly, may have a quite different view from Mr De Domenico about some particular aspect of this building. I think it is not sufficient to say that the Liberal Party is represented on the Administration and Procedures Committee and therefore on the proposed Speaker's Committee, and that that is a sufficient way for other members of the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .