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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1750 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, it would be nice to answer the question without speaking over - - -

MR SPEAKER: You might as well sit down, Mr Humphries. They are obviously not interested in your answers.

MR HUMPHRIES: I might as well. I think that is a good idea, Mr Speaker. I will.

MR CORBELL: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Perhaps, Mr Speaker, you could require the Minister to abide by the standing orders and actually answer the questions instead of prevaricating.

MR SPEAKER: He cannot be heard.

MR CORBELL: Minister, why do you not concede that this fee will effectively stop 15,000 people from visiting Tidbinbilla this year when the ACT Parks and Conservation Service has apparently calculated for this drop? Do you not accept their advice? Is it not true, Minister, that you would not have to charge this fee and drive Canberra and interstate visitors away from the reserve if the Liberal Government had not misspent government funds on wasteful projects like the $300,000 futsal slab - $30,000 more than the revenue anticipated to be raised from Tidbinbilla? Further, how does a situation in which you are effectively driving away 2,000 tourists from visiting Tidbinbilla reconcile with the Liberal Government's purported aim of encouraging visitors to come to Canberra?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, we know how Mr Corbell - Mr Countback, I should call him - works with numbers. We know how successful he is at working out the - - -

Mr Whitecross: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would have thought it was your job, as the upholder of the standing orders, to ask the Minister to refer to members by their correct titles.

MR SPEAKER: I should be happy to do that if I could hear above the interjections. If you would not mind, Mr Humphries.

MR HUMPHRIES: So, Mr Speaker, if I call Mr Corbell a wacko that is all right, but if I call him Mr Countback it is not, is it? Is that the difference?

MR SPEAKER: No; that was withdrawn earlier this morning.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I am not prepared to take on trust any estimation by Mr Corbell about how so-called visitor figures will be affected by the application of charges. What I do know is that the charging of an entry fee will provide for a significant capacity to return to Tidbinbilla - not to other areas of government, not to Consolidated Revenue, but to Tidbinbilla - a significant investment that will improve the quality of that place both as a nature reserve and as a destination for domestic visitors - that is Canberra people - and interstate and international visitors. I am quite confident of that.

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