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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2448 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

There are a number of capital works that have been dealt with already over the last few months, including such things as the Nicholls playing fields. Those athletes on the elite side do not just do their own thing at the Academy of Sport; they go back into the community, and they will be going into the sporting clubs and assisting there. At the mass participation level, we do have some excellent facilities. We are developing them in the newer areas as well, including provision for the Nicholls playing fields. In what is a difficult budget across the board, in difficult financial times, as the Chief Minister has said on many occasions, it is a responsible, very progressive and quite popular sporting budget that has been well accepted by the sporting community. ACTSport put out a press release complimenting me and the Bureau of Sport, Recreation and Racing on producing a very good budget, which I think the Government has done.

MR BERRY (9.53): A little while ago Mr Stefaniak was crowing about the issue of participation and I interjected in relation to swimming. Mr Stefaniak went straight on with the old Liberal cry about how much a swimming pool costs. Governments have been subsidising swimming pools since the year dot and I suspect that they will be subsidising them in the future, and they will be subsidising them even if they hand them over to the private sector.

Ms McRae: But not in Belconnen.

MR BERRY: As my colleague Ms McRae rightly points out, they will not be subsidising an enclosed pool in Belconnen for the Belconnen residents, which was promised before the last election. I would like to know where Mr Hird is, because he should be in here facing the music, along with his colleague Mr Stefaniak. They are the people who abandoned the electorate of Ginninderra in relation to the promised Belconnen pool. Both of these people stood out on the hustings promising people in the Belconnen electorate that they were going to get a swimming pool.

We know what Bill Stefaniak has done in relation to that promise: Nothing. All he has done is strangle Charnwood High to closure, and where was Harold Hird? He was nowhere to be seen. He could not turn up. He was not game to turn up to the community meeting on the subject. There was not a sign of him. Where was Mr Stefaniak? He was nowhere to be seen. Where is the pool? Nobody has even driven a peg into the ground, and the people of Ginninderra are most upset about that. They continually come down on Harold Hird because they know that they have been betrayed by this man. He has betrayed them.

Members interjected.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The house will come to order. You are all getting out of your depth on this pool business.

MR BERRY: You will not be doing it in the Belconnen pool, I am telling you, because these people have abandoned those - - -

Mr Hird: You cannot even swim.

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