Page 3960 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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The proposed Gallery of Aboriginal Australia on Acton Peninsula falls an awfully long way short of what the Labor Government itself promised before the 1993 election. Remember those crowds of hysterical people at the arts gathering before the election saying, "Yes, Labor is going to give us these important things. Labor is going to give us these valuable cultural assets. Labor is going to deliver on the National Museum". Remember the express promise of the Labor Government prior to that election. The ALP cultural policy of 1993 stated:
For that reason, Labor will proceed with the development of the National Museum of Australia, with a Commonwealth contribution of $26 million over four years. Its completion will be a co-operative exercise between the Commonwealth, the Government of the Australian Capital Territory and the corporate sector.
That, as the Minister well knows, is not going to happen. He may think that he can get by by buying into this wan promise by the Federal Labor Government that says, "Yes, this is the first stage. The rest is going to come later on. Just hang around. You will get the rest of the museum in due course". Let me ask Mr Wood this question: Where does the rest of it go? Is your Government going to commit itself to providing the full infrastructure for the National Museum on the Acton Peninsula and come to an agreement with the Federal Government on that basis before you commit a cent to that site or exchange money or land for the delivery of that site to the Commonwealth? Answer that question when you rise to speak in this debate.
Mr Wood: You have no credibility, Mr Humphries. Your own party has never given one skerrick of support to this.
MR HUMPHRIES: If you cannot answer that question, Mr Wood, you have no credibility. That is the question that needs to be asked and that is the question that the people of Australia, and in particular people in Canberra, want to hear answered. "Nobody could be a bigger supporter of the National Museum than I am" is more or less what Ros Kelly said before the last Federal election. She said that the National Museum would create 300 jobs; that it would be another national institution; that the Federal Government had committed itself to the National Museum; that the Federal Government would contribute $26m over the next four years. Once the $45m that they are giving to Rosemary Follett, according to her, to deliver the site comes out of that, how much will be left over to start building the museum itself? Are we going to adapt the old diagnostic block at the Royal Canberra Hospital to become our museum? What is going to happen to that? Where are you going to find the money to do that? Clearly, nowhere. Madam Speaker, this Government knows that they have been betrayed and that the people of Canberra have been betrayed, and they should have the decency to admit it.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.57): The most remarkable thing about Mr Humphries's little diatribe was that he completely failed to address the subject that he has raised as a matter of public importance, and that is the impact on the ACT. I did not hear anything at all about that. Madam Speaker, I would like to address that issue, and I thank Mr Humphries for having raised it. It is very timely indeed.
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