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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 586 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

I believe that we need a better and more detailed public statement of such expenditure. Bruce Stadium is starting to feel like another never-ending story and, as with the hospital one, I have an awful feeling that we may never get it right. Just how much money are we going to spend on this stadium to find out that it is not really an athletics stadium, it is not really going to be an AFL stadium and it is not really going to be a rugby stadium? It will end up as a ping-pong court, judging by the way we are closing it in. We just have this feeling that this is a very big project, and some of the assumptions that we heard about, particularly about attendances and potential revenue from the sponsors, were very heroic.

The Government has not heard any public comment, certainly from Labor, objecting to the Government's policy in seeking Olympic-level soccer matches at the stadium, but the general public has objected strongly, and this is a very large expenditure of money. In regard to these three projects - Bruce Stadium being the most public of them - I believe that a much clearer and more detailed statement of that expenditure and the expected revenue should be forthcoming. I believe it will be forthcoming quite soon, once that tender is let. We felt, after hearing the general public and during our own deliberations about it, that there is still a quite high level of genuine concern that with a 12-year lease we may be investing rather too much of the general public's money in something that may not yield quite the expected level of return.

The message that I also get is that this is a project that is a good one and it may bring much good to the ACT, particularly through the Olympic involvement, but it does not yet carry in any way the involvement of other members of the Assembly. I think it is most unfortunate that in something like this, which is going to go well over the life of this Government, more effort has not been made to include all of us in some way rather than leave us with dregs of information here and there on something that we then have to go out and defend without really too much information at hand.

The comment that I have heard is that there is just too cavalier an approach to public money for things that may or may not yield results. I am urging a higher level of cooperation than we have seen thus far on these projects - - -

Mrs Carnell: Like mental health?

MS McRAE: I am not talking about mental health, Mrs Carnell. You can have as many battles as you like about mental health. I am talking about very large sums of public expenditure in relation to things which are going to happen when you may not be in government and for which you are requiring other people to take responsibility without involving them in any depth. It was this that was raised by the general public, and it is this that I am raising now, specifically in relation to Bruce Stadium because it is such a public project but less specifically about the other two projects. We are fairly confident that the money does have to be spent on the hospitals. There is just this awful feeling of, "Oh, my God; and how much money will it be next year?".

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