Page 3959 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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Ms Follett was unable to give a commitment to the people of this Territory that she will fight to make sure that that asset is preserved or that we get the true value of that asset for the people of the ACT. It is a matter of record that, when the time comes and the greater leverage of the Federal Government over the ACT Government comes to bear, this Government's craven relinquishment of a bargaining position in this matter will count very heavily against the ACT.
Madam Speaker, you cannot have the National Museum of Australia, as envisaged, on the Acton site. You will end up with a reduced concept. That site is about 25 to 30 hectares. The site at Yarramundi is 88 hectares or thereabouts. We have all seen the plans. We know what the plans are all about. We know that they entail a very open, laid-out kind of park atmosphere for the National Museum at Yarramundi Reach. That was the plan; that is what everybody thought was a great idea. It was not going to be what Paul Keating ironically called a mausoleum - great halls full of cavernous spaces where people could look at things in cases. It was going to be an interactive exhibition where people could actually see, maybe touch, walk around and be part of, in an Australian setting, the things that made Australia's heritage. That was the concept. You know, Mr Wood, that that cannot happen on the Acton Peninsula.
Mr Wood: Mrs Carnell does not know that.
MR HUMPHRIES: When Mrs Carnell talked about the site, it was in the context of the decision by this ACT Government to get that site and to pay money for it.
Mr Wood: She was always happy for Acton to have the museum.
MR HUMPHRIES: No, Madam Speaker. I can see it coming now. Mr Wood is going to claim that Mrs Carnell is happy to have the National Museum on the Acton site. The position is that the preferred site has always been Yarramundi, and we want to hold the Federal Government to that promise.
Mrs Carnell also wants a full museum, not just the Gallery of Aboriginal Australia. You are not going to live with that, and your Federal colleagues are not going to live with that. You know that the most likely fate of those elements of the museum which are not going on Acton - namely, the social history of Australia and the Australia and its environment aspects - are as likely as not going to end up on the road. They are going to end up inside big semitrailers being hauled all over this country like a travelling road show, and the full-scale museum which should have been here in Canberra is not going to be here. I am ashamed about that; I am ashamed to think that our Federal Government is putting us in that position, but that indeed is what is happening. Travelling cultural sideshows are no substitute for a genuine national museum which is open in the national capital to all Australians and which houses a collection of valuable artefacts which Australians want to see.
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