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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3340 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

you come back to this Assembly and actually speak not just about whether or not we should have the rally - the rally we have had for nine years - but about what the route of that rally is."? The people in this Assembly will be aware that the rally has actually been flagged off from Civic before. In fact, it is mostly flagged off from the Civic area. Has this Assembly ever been asked to approve the route of the rally before today? Of course, it has not, Mr Speaker, because that is patently ridiculous.

Obviously, issues such as the environment have to come into play in these sorts of decisions. That goes without saying. The environment in the ACT is, obviously, a particularly important part of our community and of our society; but it is also a particularly important part of what we are selling to bring people to this city, to bring tourists here, to bring jobs here. That is what we are talking about. There is no way we are going to undermine that situation. Mr Moore might have had a point if we had said to the NCA, "Sorry, NCA; we are not going to even try to get approval for this. We are just going to build the thing, and you make us pull it up". The fact is that we did not do that. We went through all of the appropriate procedures. It has been approved.

Similarly with the rally, we believe that things like sorting out the route of the rally are things that should bring maximum benefit to this city and maximum capacity for people - the media contingents and so on - to get those absolutely panoramic views of the city beamed around the region, to bring more tourists here and to create more jobs here. I am simply not going to apologise for taking that sort of an approach.

Does this Assembly want to pass a motion today to, basically, condemn this Government for making those sorts of decisions, for making decisions that, even a large amount of the media have said, will create jobs and will bring more tourists to the city? The much maligned multipurpose sports facility - in fact, starting tomorrow - will have a multinational event, with teams from three other countries and Australia playing at that particular venue. The fact that teams from those three other countries - Japan, Brazil and Canada - are here right now means that all of those people have to stay somewhere; they have to eat somewhere; they are spending money in our city.

If this Assembly believes that is not a good thing we all should give up right now, because that is a simply ridiculous statement. The fact that the final of this particular round of futsal will be televised, I understand, by SBS means that all of those wonderful views around our lake and around our foreshore - - -

Mr Moore: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The Chief Minister has gone on for almost all of her speech saying what good things these are. That is not what the issue is about. The issue is about consultation, and that is what she is not dealing with.

MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, you are aware of it.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I just spoke at length about NCA approval. I thought that was what we were talking about here.

MR SPEAKER: You did.

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