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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2179 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

What a ridiculous state of affairs that is. Mr De Domenico talked about improving library services, but in fact they are considering closing the libraries at Tuggeranong and Erindale one extra day per week and closing the Erindale library on Saturday, which would mean a reduction in services to Tuggeranong residents, one-third of Canberra. In Mr De Domenico's own electorate he is going to close libraries three extra days a week compared to the current state of affairs. If you live in Tuggeranong and want to go to a library on Sunday, you will have to go to Woden, because no Tuggeranong library is going to open on Sunday, notwithstanding that the libraries there are heavily patronised and performed very well against the benchmarks in Mr De Domenico's report. Mr Speaker, there are some significant reasons to be concerned.

Mr Speaker, I will make two other quick references to concerns I have with this report. One is the finding that user pays needs to be introduced for value-added services. I wonder what they have in mind for value-added services. Maybe it is story time for the little kids. That is a value-added service. If you have a librarian sitting there reading a book to kids, that sounds like value adding to me. Are you going to set up a cash register at the door to charge for that? This is a report that is meant to take us through to 2001. Under "Outputs", the performance targets are recommended to be set at the 1994-95 levels. For every year between now and 2001, the performance outputs are going to be held at 1994-95 rates. Never mind that the population increases; never mind that the demands change; we are going to set our number of loans, number of visits, turnover rates of books, et cetera, at the 1994-95 levels.

Mr Speaker, there is one recommendation in this report which I very much agree with and which Mr De Domenico should read, to his shame. That is the recommendation that the library should spend more money on books. We all remember that last year Mr De Domenico actually spent less money on books. Mr De Domenico said, "This is an easy way of saving money. We will not buy new books. People will not notice that they are all old books. We will save money". Hopefully, Mr De Domenico will at least pick up that recommendation.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MR DE DOMENICO (Minister for Urban Services) (3.47): Mr Speaker, it has taken Mr Whitecross since March to put up a matter of public importance. Finally, the Opposition reckons that there is an enormous matter of public importance. What is it? The matter of public importance, after months and months, is:

The importance of a high quality library service for the ACT.

I wholeheartedly agree with Mr Whitecross. A high-quality Library Service for the ACT is a matter of enormous importance. I am pleased that the Leader of the Opposition has raised this issue and that the Opposition finally recognises the importance of a high-quality Library Service in the ACT. Is it not a pity that they did not realise that whilst they were in government. They were in government for four or five years before us, although Mr Whitecross would not remember that because he was probably at Social Security then, before they met in the phone box and elected him as leader. This Government is committed to creating the best possible Library Service for the Canberra community, unlike the previous Government, which showed little or no interest in libraries at all.

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