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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3339 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

election promise with regard to community consultation. This Government - all of the Ministers - makes itself available to anyone in the community who turns up for half a day every month. That is, I believe, a very appropriate approach, something that those opposite never made themselves available for. We certainly make ourselves available for community consultation on many other aspects.

Mr Speaker, one of the things that we have to do in this city is ensure that we have a capacity as a government - as those opposite would if they were the government - to make decisions on things such as, shall we say, a solar boat race on the lake. Are we going to have a situation where a government is not going to be able to approve that? Obviously, that would be totally ridiculous. One of the other very good examples is events such as the Tuggeranong festivals. Traditionally, they have all been carried out on the foreshore of Lake Tuggeranong; and very appropriately, too. I think that those sorts of one-off events are things that we should encourage on our lake foreshores. I think we should encourage people to have solar boat races, Tuggeranong festivals and all of those sorts of events that use the great water resources that we have. That is what we are talking about here.

Mr Moore made some comments about the multipurpose sports stadium which will be used for skating next month, which will be used for the Masters Games next year and which has the potential to be used for an exhibition tennis match in December. In fact, as Mr Stefaniak will back up, the sporting bodies are literally lining up to use the facility. What we are talking about here is a concrete slab in the middle of a car park that was unsealed. That is exactly what we are talking about, Mr Speaker. Those in this house would be very well aware that the National Capital Authority is not in the business of approving things easily. The fact is that they did approve this particular facility, this particular concrete slab.

Mr Moore: What was the deal, Kate? Come on, Kate; what was the deal?

MRS CARNELL: No deals. There you go; no deals. The National Capital Authority approved this after the appropriate processes had been gone through. As well as the concrete slab, there is a sandstone retaining wall and steps. By the way, the NCA required a particular fascia on the retaining wall to match the retaining wall directly across the road on the Archbishop's House so that it would all look very appropriate. All of those sorts of things have been done in this situation.

But the bottom line is: What are we talking about here? We are talking about a multipurpose sports facility and the Rally of Canberra, both of which have already brought a significant number of jobs and significant tourism dollars to this city. Quite seriously, is this Assembly in the business of saying, "That is not appropriate behaviour, Mrs Carnell. Please do not get out there with your Ministers and create jobs in this city or create events for this city. Please make sure that, before you say yes to the Rally of Canberra or before you say yes to a significant sponsorship from FAI Insurance,

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