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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4105 ..

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Training and Minister for Sport and Recreation) (1.26 am): I think we have just seen the problem with the lot opposite. They have absolutely no imagination. What would be your idea of a good budget for the Territory? About three hours ago, Mr De Domenico held up a blank piece of paper. That is about it. Here we have someone who has a rigid adherence to a five- or 10-year plan, and anything that might deviate from that, no matter how good, is something to be criticised, something that there is some great conspiracy about.

Have a look at page 16 of Your Money at Work, Budget Paper No. 2, Ms McRae. That deals with the Acton Park multipurpose venue, $0.25m. Have a look at the rest of the budget and see the capital works items there. You will see that the sports community is very happy with that. Have a look and see what ACTSport thinks. It represents the sporting community in Canberra, and probably through that about 50 per cent of the population, who are well and truly in favour of this new addition to the Canberra sporting scene. Consider who else is going to use it. Maybe you should go past it a few times, because I certainly have and I have seen a lot of people using it.

Ms McRae: This is irrelevant.

MR STEFANIAK: It is not. It is very relevant, Ms McRae.

Ms McRae: This is irrelevant. I said that I was happy for it to be used.

MR STEFANIAK: And who is going to be using it in February, Ms McRae? The Woodies.

Ms McRae: When?

MR STEFANIAK: In February.

Mr Berry: No. That has been cancelled; I am sorry.

MR STEFANIAK: No, it has not. So, I think you are going to find that that little item is going to get a lot of extra use. Sometimes, Ms McRae, governments have to do a few things fairly quickly. They cannot rigidly stick to a 10-year plan. This is not the Soviet Union, Ms McRae. We know what happened to that. I think you need to wake up. In fact, I was rather appalled to listen to your speech. I do not think the sporting community would be terribly impressed with it because actually, unlike you, they like the idea. They actually like this budget, just as they liked our first budget, and for very good reasons. Community sporting organisations benefited considerably by this. All those little organisations that Ms McRae talked about had an extra $304,000 in the sport and recreation development grants program. That brought the total Government funding for community sporting organisations to $2.148m this financial year.

In terms of some of the other initiatives, $400,000 is being spent on upgrading playing fields. Another $300,000 is being spent on the installation of floodlighting. There is to be a refurbishment of the Erindale Leisure Centre. There is to be funding of $742,000 for the Masters Games - an event that is going to bring at least 10,000 visitors to this Territory, which will inject significant funds into the Territory. Through Project 2000,

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