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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 125 ..

Mr Woo MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

d may care to characterise that as an attack on Government policy. I would read between the lines and assume that Mr Thompson is not entirely comfortable with some elements of Government policy, but I would also not interpret that letter to be a spitting of the dummy.

Ms McLeod cites a number of reasons for her resignation. I will not read from this in detail, but I will say that she comments in particular on some decisions the Government has taken to make decisions outside the framework of the advice from the Cultural Council. She refers to the decision I made a few weeks ago to provide funding to the Eureka Theatre Company, and comment has been made in the media about the decision to fund the Multicultural Festival as well to the tune of $100,000. I think it is important, in referring to those comments, that I indicate my profound regret that these two longstanding members of the council should choose to resign. But I also have to emphasise that, if members of the council believe that they are in a position of making decisions about funding rather than advising the Government about decisions on funding, perhaps they have a fundamental misconception of where they stand.

We have never had arm's length funding in the ACT; it has always been elbow length funding - a phrase I coined some years ago. That is, the decisions that are made by the council are generally the decisions adopted by government, but not invariably. I do not know whether you, Mr Wood, ever took a different view to the Cultural Council's view about a funding proposal. It was my view in the case of the Eureka Theatre Company that the company was a good theatre company and deserved another chance, even though the Council thought it did not. That obviously rankled with Ms McLeod very heavily. It was also the decision of the Chief Minister that there should be a generous level of support for Canberra's Multicultural Festival. Members in this place will have experienced that festival over the last few weeks and, I am sure, would have come away with a very strong sense of the excitement and the dynamism of that particular exercise. I think the Chief Minister was entirely within her rights to be able to make a commitment to future and substantial ongoing funding to the Multicultural Festival.

Mr Speaker, I also have to say that the view by these two members of the Council, which I think I read into their comments, that they saw the establishment of the Canberra Cultural Authority as some kind of threat to the Cultural Council, is unfortunate and a very real misconception of what is going on. The Canberra Cultural Authority is taking over from the Arts Bureau the management of cultural assets in the ACT such as the Canberra Theatre, the Cultural Centre, and perhaps things like Calthorpe's House, Lanyon and so on. That is its role. It will have no role in the determination of funding advice, which will continue to be the role of the Council. I will finally quote the last sentence of Ms McLeod's letter to me:

My warmest wishes to you and thanks for your very great commitment to the arts in the ACT.

I table those two letters.

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