Page 3779 - Week 14 - Thursday, 10 December 1992
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Madam Speaker, we recommend that $250,000 go to the Childers Street theatre. That is by way of capital funds. It is a recognition of the fact that the Government has funded the theatre, but we were told that the theatre would not be viable, in fact could not be used, unless they had an additional $250,000 to put some equipment in it. We accepted that, as a community theatre, and the necessity for that.
The bulk of the money we recommend for the Civic Square area - the upgrade of the Playhouse theatre and the establishment of a true community centre in that area. The committee has expressed its preference. I might add that that is also my own personal preference. I believe that we had to look again at the broader picture because we are moving the Assembly into the South Building - that will become the permanent home of the Assembly - and we are talking about spending a considerable sum of money on that. When you add that and the amount that we are recommending here, we can create a true city centre because we are spending, in total, if the Government accepts this recommendation, about $25m in that area. From that money we should be able to create a first-rate Civic Centre with the legislature, with a performing arts centre and with a community, cultural and heritage facility that we can look to in the future and say, "That facility essentially came from the casino money".
At the end of the day there will be a tangible structure that people can see. It is not by any means all of the money, but I believe that we had to have something at the end of the day, something tangible that can be shown to be the end product of this exercise. We have made provision for other expenditures and, in the end, that money may be spent over a period of years and, at the end of the day, there may be nothing tangible that you can put your hand on and say, "That is what we got for our money". There may be a great impact on community theatre and all sorts of community facilities out there, but you will not be able to actually see them. Even if it does mean some inconvenience for the Government, and recognising that they have just spent a good deal of money upgrading the North Building, I think that my strong personal preference is to see that area developed so that we can see what we have at the end of the day.
Madam Speaker, as the chairman has said, I think that the secretariat members - Rod Power, Katrina Wilson and Karen Pearce - are to be commended. They had a very short period in which to produce this report. It is very easy for the committee members to sit there and listen to people and to talk, but in the end somebody has to do the work. Those people did the work and I think it is a report that they can be proud of. It is a report which I commend to the Government, and I would like to see some response from them, very quickly, indicating that they endorse these recommendations.
MS ELLIS (10.55): Madam Speaker, I would like briefly to address this report. It was a pleasure on my part to participate in this inquiry. I would like to pay particular attention to certain aspects of the inquiry. First of all, to repeat the words said by both Mr Lamont and Mr Kaine in relation to the Aboriginal community, I was very much impressed by the work that they put into, first of all, their submissions and, secondly, their presentation to the committee at the public hearing. There was no way that I could ever imagine a committee made up of people other than the five already there having a different reaction to those submissions by both the Ngunnawals and the Bogong Council. I very much support the recommendation in relation to the Aboriginal community as the first recommendation in the report.
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