Page 3778 - Week 14 - Thursday, 10 December 1992
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Madam Speaker, in connection with the $2.7m that we have recommended be established in some sort of a trust arrangement, I think I can again reflect the community view - the chairman has referred to this - that all the money should not be spent in one place. We are talking here about community affairs, and the community is not in Civic Centre; it is out where people live. There were many proposals, some of them requiring only relatively small sums of money. We had a bit of a dilemma in trying to figure out how we could accommodate some of those small applicants when we have $19m. There were some very large applications in terms of money value that did have merit, in every case, I believe; yet we had to have regard for those small community organisations and groups who have just as much claim to some of this money as the bigger organisations. There were a number of very small applicants about which I think we would all like to have said, "We will commit $20,000 or $30,000 or $40,000 specifically to that".
Looking at it in a realistic way, we had to conclude in the end that that was not the way to go; that the community itself ought to determine which of those small competing groups should get the money. That is why we opted for the alternative of establishing a trust fund. Then you can set up management arrangements and those smaller groups and people who need only small sums of money are not competing with the biggies. We are recommending an allocation of $2.75m; and those small groups can compete amongst themselves, but they are not competing with those that were seeking larger sums of money. That is a process that the Government still has to put in train. There is a list of all of the people who applied; there is a summary of their submissions; and there are details of the amounts of money that they have asked for. What I am saying is that the Government should not determine that. We should set up a community committee, a community body of some kind, so that the community itself determines its priorities and allocates that money. It does not matter if it takes them some years to allocate it; the money will be there and it will be earning interest if it is properly invested in a trust fund.
Madam Speaker, there is only one of the recommendations about which I personally have any reservations. My reservations are not expressed in the report; it is a unanimous report. But I do have a minor reservation about committing $1.5m for essential maintenance and basic refurbishment of Natex. I cannot think of any expenditure of that kind that ought not come out of normal government works budgets. That is a community asset out there and it should be being maintained. But I recognise that if the Government cannot find the money in its budget it would be criminal for us to allow that facility to run down and become degraded. For that reason I support this minimal amount of money in terms of what is required at Natex in the longer term. If there is any part of this report about which I have any personal reservations, Madam Speaker, that is the only part.
Mr Lamont: But you endorse the recommendation?
MR KAINE: I endorse the report. I am not withdrawing any support from the report, Madam Speaker; I made it clear that this is a unanimous report. I suppose, within the context of the total picture, we may all have some personal reservations about some parts of it. That does not denigrate the report in any way.
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