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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2100 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

comparable populations - Tasmania and the Northern Territory are two examples of States with reasonably comparable populations - you find that they spend a hell of a lot more on marketing and promotion than we do. The Northern Territory spends $24m, on my understanding, and Tasmania spends $17m. Even when you take away administration and other costs, you still find that it is far more than the $1m to $2m that this Government spends each year on promotion and marketing. I think this is what it comes down to: This Government is not serious about promotion and marketing. We have to be serious about promoting our town and attracting visitors to our town. It is about priorities. It is about where you spend your money. It is about where you believe it is most important to spend the limited resources you have.

Earlier, I outlined a number of points which deal with this very matter - half a million dollars on the promotional strategy which is not available to Canberra Tourism, $1m on the Visitor Information Centre, and $350,000 for the events prospecting fund. Again, the focus on that expenditure has been wrong. You could utilise that existing expenditure far more effectively if you did not have a muddle-headed approach. That is our criticism of this Government's tourism strategy. We believe that it is a matter of priority. We believe that it is a matter of where you spend the money and where you direct your resources so that they can be used in the most valuable manner. That is what this Government has failed to do, and that is our most important criticism of the Government's approach on tourism.

MR KAINE (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Tourism) (4.00): I must say that I was hopeful that in this debate we would have got something productive from the Opposition. As I might have expected, I was exceedingly disappointed. Mr Berry, sadly - but more specifically Mr Corbell - really has not faced up to any issue that is implicit in the budget. I do not know what he was talking about, but it bore no relationship to what the Government is doing and it bore no relationship to the budget.

I will deal first with the questions of industrial relations that Mr Berry spoke of. His approach seemed to be that, no matter what happens in any situation involving the Government and the unions, the Government is always wrong. Mr Speaker, there are always at least two parties to any situation of conflict or confrontation. Mostly, of course, it is the Government as the employer and a union or unions representing, they claim, the employees. I do not think that even Mr Berry could go so far as to say that, in any situation of confrontation or conflict, one party is always right and the other is always wrong. He sees the world in very simplistic, black-and-white terms, if that is the way he really sees industrial relations. It says a great deal about why there was so much industrial unrest when we had a Labor government, if that is the way they see it.

I think that this Government has handled this relationship with the trade unions quite successfully, and it has done so because it recognises the fact that the trade unions are not always wrong. I think that there is a recognition on the part of at least the more responsible trade unions that the Government is not always wrong either; that there is room for negotiation; that, by and large, we sit down and deal with things by negotiation; and that, if we come to a situation where our views are irreconcilable, then we go to the Industrial Relations Commission.

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