Page 4543 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 14 December 1993
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We have given a commitment to fund our part of it. I believe that it is up to the Federal Government not so much to decide whether they want to put it on Acton Peninsula or on Yarramundi Reach, but to decide whether they are going ahead with it and just get on with it. My own view is that the Acton site probably is not big enough for the kind of museum that has been envisaged. Unless that museum model has changed drastically, I cannot image that there is a better site for it than Yarramundi Reach. I am very concerned indeed to see the museum progressed and I will keep discussing that matter with the relevant Federal members. I think, Madam Speaker, that reopening the issue of the site is really just a way of putting off a decision about whether to go ahead with it. I wish it to go ahead and I will do everything in my power to ensure that that occurs.
Madam Speaker, to conclude, like other members of this Assembly, I am concerned to see that the matter of the appropriate use of Acton Peninsula is tidied up quickly and efficiently. Given the range of views that are around, and given the commitment to consultation by both planning authorities, I think it is inevitable that we will take quite a while to come to finality on Acton Peninsula. As far as the Territory goes, and as far as this Government goes, I can flag that we will not be accepting a decision that does not respect, and respect in full, the rights of the Territory's elected representatives and the Territory's people.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (3.49): Madam Speaker, the people of Canberra were promised a hospice more than six years ago. Today the promise simply has not been kept.
Mr Berry: It is not a promise about a hospice. This is about Acton Peninsula.
MRS CARNELL: The fact is, Mr Berry, that the people of Canberra simply do not have a hospice. It is interesting that the Minister has been notably quiet since mid-September when the National Capital Planning Authority rightly refused to grant works approval for a hospice on Acton Peninsula. I am reminded of a photograph of Mr Berry published in the Canberra Times back in May.
Mr De Domenico: Is that the one that makes him look like Humphrey Bogart?
MRS CARNELL: No, Jimmy Dean. It showed a windswept photo of Mr Berry patrolling his famous hospice fence, head down into a howling wind and wearing a heavy overcoat - a real Jimmy Dean look-alike. I understand that there are plans afoot to rename the roadway that runs into the car park the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams".
Madam Speaker, the NCPA has now completed a series of exhaustive public consultations about the future of this beautiful strip of land that juts out into Lake Burley Griffin. I understand that these consultations have not been cheap and have cost some $250,000, but the fact remains that the people of Canberra are continuing to lose out. They have no hospice and Acton Peninsula continues to lie unused while its fate is debated.
The Opposition supports Ms Szuty's MPI wholeheartedly because the time has come to resolve this issue. Madam Speaker, in politics there is a fine line between the definitions of courage and foolishness. Mr Berry has put himself into a position where he has not produced a hospice. There is no hospice in Canberra.
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