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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2163 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The upgrade of the water area with a walk beside that area for observation purposes cannot occur. I have to say quite bluntly to the Assembly and warn the Assembly that if these upgrades cannot occur I cannot guarantee that the Commonwealth offer of funding of $200,000 will continue on the table.

Mr Corbell: That is a threat, is it?

MR HUMPHRIES: It is a threat, Mr Corbell. We have asked the Commonwealth for that money and received the offer of that money predicated on an upgrade of Tidbinbilla. If we are not able to charge fees, we do not have the capacity to upgrade Tidbinbilla. Without the capacity to upgrade Tidbinbilla, we may lose that $200,000.

This is a stupid, foolish act by people who are opportunistically employing the proximity to an election to grandstand on a matter which they know would already have been law if they had been in office today. Fees would have been charged at Tidbinbilla for at least 18 months at this point if a Labor government had been returned in February 1995, without the slightest shadow of a doubt. We have used the ANZECC best practice model and the experience from other jurisdictions to produce what we think is a modest and appropriate structure for fees at Tidbinbilla. We have announced at the same time that all other parks and reserves will remain free for entry by members of the public; that all revenue raised by this measure will be retained within Tidbinbilla; that the revenue raised will be additional money for Tidbinbilla, that is, we will not reduce the budget to match the amount that has been brought in by the entry fees; and that the funds will be used for conservation and visitor services.

The fees will be extremely modest, certainly by national standards. The fees will be $8 per vehicle and $20 for an annual pass. Twenty dollars for a carload of people for an entire year is not excessive. We have deliberately chosen an entry fee based on vehicles, rather than the individual entry to which Mr Corbell fatuously refers, in order to specifically benefit families. How will this work? If a family of, say, five - two adults and three children - arrives there, the day pass of $8 works out to be just $1.60 each. You cannot buy a Magnum ice-cream for $1.60, but with this arrangement you can get access to Tidbinbilla as a family for that amount. For $20 the same family can obtain entry to Tidbinbilla throughout the year, as many times throughout the year as they wish. If they visit just four times a year, the total cost for each member of the family is just $1 per visit. Of course, we have concessions on top of those arrangements for benefit card holders, the unemployed, pensioners and volunteer groups.

The Opposition claims that these charges are too high. They refer to the relatively easy way we have made the concessions available as some kind of weakness in the arrangement. I see the fact that we are not particularly rigorous about who uses the concession to get in not as a sign of a lack of foresight about these things but as an indication that we are more concerned about the principle than about whether a particular person gets through the gate on the full fee or a part fee. The Opposition claims that the fees are too high. (Extension of time granted) Visitors to Kakadu in the Northern Territory are charged $12 for an individual pass and $60 for an annual pass. Uluru is $10 a day and $60 a year. Kosciuszko is $12 a day and $60 a year. Jervis Bay is $5 a day and $25 a year. I think that the arrangement of $8 a day for a whole family or a whole group and $20 for an annual pass is extremely good value.

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