Page 3851 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 8 November 1994
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As to Mr Humphries's sour grapes about our announcements on the arts: It was Labor Party policy; it was the policy that came through the committee on arts facilities that I was chair of in the last parliament. That committee saw to it that $19m of casino money was put to arts facilities; and that was a major achievement, a major recognition by the Labor Party and the Labor Government that this was an appropriate way to spend money.
Mr Kaine: When are you going to spend it?
MR WOOD: It has all been announced, Mr Kaine. If you had been paying attention, you would have known that. It may be that you, as a Tuggeranong resident, are not happy with some of those announcements. If that is your view, you spread it.
Madam Speaker, I would have expected Mr Humphries, if he had had some vision in this area, to have made some comment about the remarkable proposal that we have for the Canberra Institute of Technology to spend up to half a million dollars on the quite good hall at the institute. In cooperation with institute programs, relevant programs and programs that are compatible with what is happening at the School of Music or elsewhere, it will introduce courses or programs to promote music, perhaps on the more technical side. Mr Humphries did not have the vision that we had to see that that was a very appropriate way to spend money.
I come back to what Ms Szuty said. She complained that we were centralising things. We have put resources into Tuggeranong; we have put resources into the Woden-Weston Creek area; and we have this other excellent idea of improving the theatre at Hawker College, to make it more accessible to the community. With that cultural planner, we will develop culturally what is happening in that Belconnen area. These are excellent ideas; but, of course, Mr Humphries did not want to know about them. He was into sour grapes because he is bereft of ideas himself in that area of culture; he is culturally barren.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE TO MEMBER
Motion (by Ms Szuty) agreed to:
That leave of absence from 11 November to 25 November 1994 inclusive be given to Mr Moore.
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