Page 206 - Week 01 - Thursday, 18 February 1993
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MR LAMONT: Yes, some would suggest that, although what is being suggested for the South Building is consistent with this committee's recommendations for the North Building in trying to create a greater community focus on the Civic Square area. I believe that that was the driving force behind the recommendation - in terms of the priority order that the committee put them in - for the cultural centre and for the administrative centre for a range of the small bodies, such as the Garden History Society, the Chamber Music Society and the choirs.
Mr Cornwell: But not primarily a regional art gallery.
MR LAMONT: But that indeed is where you have a fixation about the use of a number of words which do not, in my view, attract the significance that you are attempting to put on them. The simple proposition is that the committee has recommended, as was recommended by a number of the witnesses who appeared before the committee, that, amongst other things, that be one of the uses for the cultural centre. Quite frankly, if you have a look at the North Building - and that is bound to be the place where this cultural centre is created - it provides a perfect opportunity on the ground floor square level to be opened up and used for public access into galleries, et cetera, and for the internal courtyard possibly to be covered over and used again as an exhibition space.
If everything the committee has recommended goes into the North Building, the primary thing that people will see will be that public access open space and gallery-type area and heritage-type centre. The committee believes that it should allow for public involvement and the public integration of this into that public open space. If that has been accentuated in a comment by the Chief Minister, so be it. It is not inconsistent at all with the recommendations of this committee, and for you to attempt to denigrate a report that this Assembly has regarded as being a significant one is nothing but crass political opportunism on your part, and I am quite disappointed to say that it appears to be the same in relation to the Leader of the Opposition, a member of the committee. I do not want to see anything detract from the recommendations that have been made with honesty and integrity by the members of this committee.
Mr Cornwell: Neither do we, Mr Lamont.
MR LAMONT: But you are attempting to do so. That is the simple fact. I would have presumed that there would have been congratulations to the Government for endorsing every one of the recommendations contained in this report. That is fairly unusual in relation to reports that have come out of the Assembly over the last four years. It has been unusual for any government - including yours, Mr Kaine - to endorse unanimously the recommendations contained in reports that are presented by committees of this Assembly. So the simple fact is that there is a crass political process being used by you, Mr Cornwell, in trying to saddle this report with the type of propaganda and bumptious bunkum which has been portrayed here this morning - and that is not unparliamentary. I have in fact checked that out, Mr De Domenico, and we can describe that later on. So I am in fact extremely pleased to have been able to respond to the nonsense across the chamber this morning, but I am even more pleased to have worked with Mr Kaine, Mr De Domenico, Ms Szuty and Ms Ellis in bringing this report before the Assembly. I commend the report and know that it will be adopted unanimously by the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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