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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2176 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

Mr Speaker, this report, coming as it does on top of the Government's decision last year to cut $1m from the library budget, raises some serious questions about the place we are going to have for libraries in our community services in this town. Of course, we have seen an erosion of the importance of libraries by those opposite, and we have seen a report which threatens a further erosion of the quality of library services in this Territory. It is a fact that all civilised communities have placed a high value on libraries, not just in the twentieth century or the nineteenth century; but going back over the millennia to Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome, great libraries were an integral part of civilisations and their growth.

MR SPEAKER: Not to mention Alexandria, Mr Whitecross.

MR WHITECROSS: Alexandria too, Mr Speaker. We could talk forever about this, I am sure, Mr Speaker. Ancient civilisations thousands of years ago were wise enough to have the vision and culture to understand that libraries added to the richness of their society. Mr Speaker, libraries are repositories of knowledge. As I said, Mr De Domenico last year began lopping branches off the tree of knowledge with his $1m cuts to the library budget. As Mr Osborne, a wise member of this place, said at the time, what type of government reduces funding to libraries? Never was a truer rhetorical question uttered. It must be painfully clear to Mr Osborne by now what type of government he is dealing with here in relation to their approach to libraries. Mr Speaker, the total library budget in the ACT is less than $7m, which is about half what Mrs Carnell has wasted in her health budget. Yet still the library budget comes under the heaviest and most arduous scrutiny from this Government, looking for ways to scrimp and save money at the expense of the community.

Mr De Domenico: No, to improve the Library Service. We do not stand still like you. We do not go back to the past. We look forward to the future.

MR WHITECROSS: I am glad that Mr De Domenico talks about improving library services, because this brings me to some of the recommendations in the report which set the directions for the future which Mr De Domenico is so anxious to move into. Mr Speaker, one of the fascinating key findings of the report was that there is a big problem with the public libraries in the ACT because of "duplication of opening hours between branches". In other words, if the library in Civic is open on Fridays, it seems an awful waste to have the one at Dickson or Woden open on Fridays as well. Mr Speaker, this is an amazing piece - - -

Mr De Domenico: It does not say that at all.

MR WHITECROSS: Mr De Domenico compounds his error by saying that because - - -

Mr De Domenico: It is your interpretation.

MR WHITECROSS: If Mr De Domenico had read his own report, he would know that that is exactly the sort of thing that this report does. They say that it is terrible to have two libraries - - -

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