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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3072 ..
MS McRAE (4.05): Mr Speaker, I am more than happy to support the community's support for the parade and for our doing everything possible to honour our sportspeople, particularly the outstanding Paralympians that Mr Hird has mentioned. May I at the same time, though, refer to an article in the Chronicle, which stated:
The achievements of the ... ACT paralympians who recently returned from Atlanta will be celebrated on September 12 from 12-1.30 pm with a ... parade ... Details of the parade will be available in the Chronicle ...
That is good. Then it stated:
The ACT Council for the Australian Paralympic Federation is seeking donations of $25 -
listen to this, Mr Hird -
to cover the costs of transporting school children to the parade by bus.
Mr Hird and members, tell me what sort of a parade this is. This is taking user pays to the most ridiculous length I have ever heard of. The Paralympians have to pay for their own parade. This is how we honour them. This is how we celebrate their achievements. We say, "Go away and raise some money, and then you can have a few children on the buses". What a contemptible process! I would very much like the Government to say, here and now, that if the Paralympians raise any money they can keep that money for their sport and that this Government will now do the same as it did for the children that came to the Olympians' parade. For the Olympic welcome home parade last week, 4,000 schoolchildren were bussed into Civic on 60 ACTION buses, at a cost of between $10 and $18 a bus instead of the usual $120. The Olympic welcome home parade was, therefore, heavily subsidised by ACTION, and Mrs Carnell thanked ACTION in the Assembly. She said, "ACTION provided transport for 4,000 children to and from the parade, at an extremely reasonable cost to government". Why, may I ask, is not the same courtesy being offered to our Paralympians? What a slight on their achievements! Here they are - outstanding medallists. What do we have? We have 10 gold, six silver and four bronze, and they have to go out with the begging bowl and say, "Give me your donation so that we can put children on the bus to welcome us home". What a nonsense!
Mr Hird, you really should have done a bit more homework before you put this motion on the table. You should have found out what was happening. I hope that you will do a bit more now, because this is an outrage. If the Paralympic Federation is able to raise money, then the Paralympic Federation should be able to use that money for what it is there for - helping our Paralympians. Our Paralympians have had to work very hard to get there, as has every elite sportsperson. They have depended, as has every elite sportsperson across Australia, on a multitude of supporters. I am sure that they will be overwhelmed with support by this cry for donations, because the community is right behind them.
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