Page 2011 - Week 07 - Thursday, 17 June 1993
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will need to be explored in the medium term, and its recommendations include an enhanced role for the Tourism Commission in bringing these to fruition. In terms of the organisational structure of the ACT Tourism Commission, the committee recommends that the Government retain the Canberra Visitor and Convention Bureau as an entity separate from the Tourism Commission, but that it ensure that the CVCB operation be consistent with tourism development policy and that the CVCB be subject to the financial accountability that applies to government business and other authorities.
The committee addressed the problem of Canberra bashing and recommended that the Government, in consultation with the NCPA, develop an education program about the ACT for Australia-wide use. It further recommends that, in consultation with education groups, we develop a schools and colleges program about the Legislative Assembly and its committees. To digress slightly from this report, but still on the same subject, I would like to put in a plug for the Canberra and Canberra Woden Rotary clubs, who run a successful program called Adventure in Citizenship. This involves bringing some 60 or 70 young people from all over Australia to Canberra once a year for a week. The purpose is to show them what Canberra is. They leave realising that it is not only for politics. This is a small contribution; but it is, I believe, a fine example of the community playing its part to promote Canberra, and we would welcome other organisations carrying out similar projects.
The committee at its public inquiry noted broad support for an ACT bid for the Commonwealth Games in 2002, but there was a concern that such a bid should be thoroughly researched in terms of accommodation and other infrastructure. The committee has therefore recommended that the Government, in cooperation with the relevant industry sectors and community interests, should undertake a feasibility study. The games would certainly be an excellent goal towards which all sectors of the community - government, business and the people - should strive.
The report covers a wide range of issues important to the tourism industry in the region. It provides a benchmark for cementing the gains made by the tourism industry and forging a path for future development. The importance of tourism to the ACT economy cannot be overemphasised. Tourism directly employs 7,700 Canberrans and pumps around $500m into the local economy each year, making it the ACT's second largest industry. The committee and I are totally committed to the advancement of tourism in the ACT and to promoting the Territory. Shortly I will be leaving on a private trip overseas, but I will have ample time to promote the ACT, and for this I have the express approval of the other members of the committee. I thank them for their encouragement.
In closing, I thank the other members of the committee, Mr David Lamont and Ms Helen Szuty, for their contribution. I particularly thank my colleague Mr Tony De Domenico, the former chairman of the committee, for his assistance and considerable input. The tremendous amount of work by the committee secretariat is always rightly acknowledged in this chamber, and in the case of this report I personally thank Mr Bill Symington. His contribution has been invaluable and of a very high order. I also thank all those who made submissions and appeared as witnesses at the public hearing. As an Australian and a Canberran by choice, I make a personal commitment to promote the ACT, and I invite all other members here and the public at large to do likewise. I commend the report of the Standing Committee on Tourism and ACT Promotion to the Assembly.
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