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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 3900 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

Another claim made last night was again dropped rather quickly. That was a claim of double dipping, which was offensive to all in that room. This concept of acquiring funds from more than one source was better put by one of the people present as complementary funding. It is something that I encouraged as Minister, and I believe other Ministers have encouraged - to go to the Health Promotion Fund for grants. Yet that was offensively referred to as double dipping. Perhaps Australia Council funds are seen as double dipping. That was quickly dropped because it was seen as inappropriate and offensive.

The meeting reasserted most strongly its requirement for arm's-length funding, for peer assessment and for retention of the Cultural Council. It rejected totally political intrusion, intrusion by senior bureaucrats specifically from the Office of Financial Management, and, as the motion suggests, it did not want to get further distant. It wants to be close to its Minister, as it believes it has been in the past, and it did not want that disturbed. The whole tenor of the night, as I say, was that they did not trust the level of senior bureaucratic influence and likely political involvement that is to be imposed. They simply do not trust the motives and the agenda behind this, or the Carnell Government.

They want to maintain the system that has been in place so far and that has clearly worked very well for the arts; a system where recommendations are made to the Minister and those recommendations are discussed in the whole process with the Minister, as has been pointed out. If a recommendation comes forward, for example, Mr Humphries, to defund the Arts Council of the ACT, that may then be done if that comes through that lengthy process.

Mr Humphries: It will under the new arrangements, too. What has changed?

MR WOOD: They do not accept that that is the case. They do not believe that. There is a new process. In fact, Mr Humphries, those people last night were on your side because they believed that you stood up for the existing arrangement but that you were rolled in Cabinet. You might comment on that.

Mr Humphries: They were there, were they?

MR WOOD: No, they were not there, but that is what the gossip mill tells them - that you have been rolled, and that others with no great interest in the arts are now to take control of arts funding. That is the concern they had last night.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for Arts and Heritage) (4.01): Mr Speaker, I do not know what sort of brief Mr Wood had to fill in some time this afternoon, but I have to say that I think there could have been stronger issues on which to run an MPI. The problem with this MPI is the premise on which it is based. The premise is that there have been changes made to the administration of arts funding in the Territory which are deleterious to the efficiency or good operation or effectiveness of the arts sector.

Despite having 15 minutes in which to elaborate on this question, Mr Wood was unable to pinpoint or identify what it was that was wrong with the proposed system of funding - either the arts grants or any other form of grants in the Territory under these new arrangements which, I emphasise, are a trial, not a permanent arrangement. I am really

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