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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 115 ..

MR CORBELL: I would like to ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Minister, as your answer is no, what guarantees can you give the ACT community that they will not be left to fund an expensive white elephant if these sporting organisations choose to play elsewhere?

MR STEFANIAK: I think those organisations are very keen to play in Canberra, and to play in Canberra for some period of time. I think it is also very important, Mr Corbell, that we have top-class facilities. Bruce Stadium is a facility that was built in the 1970s and is very much a 1970s facility. We are now a city which is starting to get on the world sporting map. We will have Olympic events occurring here in 2000. We have a very successful rugby league side in the Raiders, who have played at Bruce Stadium since 1989 and who are now in the Super League competition, which will involve a number of matches against international sides, I understand, this year at Bruce. We also have the Brumbies, who had spectacular success in the Super 12s - the Southern Hemisphere competition - in their first season; and we have a soccer team that plays in the National Soccer League. Those three codes between them, I understand, have about 50 matches booked for Bruce this year.

I think it is very important, in these days of interstate and national sport, and sport where you play games against international teams as well, that we have top-class facilities. I think it is important to have an upgrade of the stadium. The plans for the upgrade, Mr Corbell, were, I think, essential in ensuring that we will get Olympic soccer matches played in Canberra. I really do not think that you can overestimate the potential to this city - in terms of giving it just a general boost, tourism potential and economic potential into the future - from having Olympic matches played here. We are certainly very keen for all those sports - as, I understand, are those three codes themselves - to play, and to play on a long-term basis, at Bruce.

MS HORODNY: Mr Speaker, my question is directed to Mr Humphries, as Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning and as Attorney-General. Mr Humphries, you would obviously be aware that, in the Magistrates Court yesterday, Magistrate Michael Ward dismissed the trespass charges against the four people who entered the Parkwood Eggs farm on 20 October 1995 to protest about the cruelty inflicted on the battery hens kept there. Magistrate Ward found that the people had a reasonable excuse for protesting at Parkwood Eggs because, he found, keeping hens in battery cages is inherently cruel to the hens; that the code of practice for battery hen farming is internally contradictory, in that it is meant to protect the welfare of hens but allows a system that is contrary to their welfare; and also that Parkwood Eggs was breaching even the mild rules in the code of practice. Minister, at the time of the Parkwood protest, you publicly made a number of disparaging remarks about the animal liberation protesters, calling the action a stunt and an irresponsible method of publicising their complaints. You said that there were no problems at Parkwood Eggs. Given the findings in the Magistrates Court, will you now apologise to those protesters and acknowledge that they were indeed taking a principled and necessary stance against the cruelty of the battery hen system?

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