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services to park users. Mr Speaker, the option of the New South Wales Parks and Wildlife Service has been ruled out because that particular option did not provide for a cost-effective method of delivering a service to the people of Canberra. That is the bottom line. We have to maintain an important level of service to the people of Canberra. But we are prepared to look at the options.

Mr Speaker, I would ask Mr Moore and Mr Osborne to listen particularly to what I have to say now. I was criticised in this debate about a kite flying exercise. It was suggested that we are flying kites and that we should not be allowed to do that. Flying a kite has actually produced a very important development for the people of the ACT. In the last few days a further offer has been made to the ACT Government for the management, not by the ACT Government, of Namadgi National Park. That offer has come about only because of the so-called kite flying that Mr Berry referred to. The organisation that has approached us is the Australian Nature Conservation Agency, formerly known as the National Parks and Wildlife Service. They are interested in offering a service to the people of the ACT to manage that national park. For those of us who do not know what the Australian Nature Conservation Agency is - - -

Mr Berry: Tell them, “No thanks. We are right”. Just say, “No; we are right”.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Berry says to say, “No thanks”. Let me tell him that the Australian Nature Conservation Agency, formerly the National Parks and Wildlife Service, is a highly professional, world-class nature conservation management organisation. It presently manages Kakadu and Uluru national parks and a couple of other parks as well. They have a world-class standard of park management to offer to the people of the ACT. They also may be able to offer us a service which is less expensive than our present one.

Mr Connolly: It is a Federal agency that moves in when they do not trust the States or Territories.

MR HUMPHRIES: It is a Federal agency, indeed. It is absolutely a Federal agency. I see no reason why we should not be prepared to talk to such an agency about this option. If we say that we will not talk to that agency about that option, then we are saying that we think they are good enough to manage Kakadu and Uluru but not good enough to manage Namadgi National Park. That organisation is interested in offering a service to the people of the ACT because they are interested in adding Namadgi, which I think is a very considerable asset not just to the people of the ACT but to the people of Australia, to the coterie of parks that they manage, to broaden their experience, to widen the range of parks that they manage and services they offer and to ensure that they have a cost-effective basis on which they can operate.

With great respect, Mr Speaker, I think that information throws the suggestion made in this motion of Mr Berry's into a different light altogether. I would ask members of this Assembly not to rule out the idea of handing over, as Mr Berry puts it, or contracting out, as I would put it, to an organisation like the former National Parks and Wildlife Service, now the Australian Nature Conservation Agency, the management of Namadgi National Park. There is no doubt that they could do a good job.

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