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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 2866 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

The chairman of the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation, James Service, and the corporation's chief executive officer, David Marshall, do not agree with him either. So there are three of us who do not agree with his proposition. They do not believe, for example, that the corporation that they are responsible for administering is best placed to ensure the promotion of Canberra's business strengths; yet that is what Mr Corbell says in his motion. They do not think so, because they are not responsible for business, and they are not responsible for marketing Canberra as a business destination. Even Mr Corbell, I think, would have to agree, if he thought about it for five minutes, that that proposition is untenable. Administration of this coordinated marketing and promotion initiative, which covers business, tourism, sport and culture, only one of which is the responsibility of the Tourism Corporation, sits best within the department that administers all of those things, that is, the Department of Business, the Arts, Sport and Tourism. It would be inappropriate to place the money and the responsibility for it solely within the Tourism Corporation.

The third point, Madam Deputy Speaker, is that this motion shows a complete lack of knowledge of the 1997-98 budget by Mr Corbell. The Chief Minister and Treasurer has spoken about that. If Mr Corbell afforded himself the luxury of even reading the budget papers he would see that the Government has indeed provided an additional $500,000 within that budget for the promotion of Canberra, not the promotion of tourism. I quote from the "Creating Jobs for Canberra" paper, on page 33:

As a central fund for Government and industry, this represents a first for the ACT since self-government, and is expected to generate employment from increased business and tourism.

I table an extract from that document for Mr Corbell's edification, in case he failed to read it before.

Rather than focusing on the trivialities that this motion brings forward, perhaps it is worth reflecting on the positive steps that the Government has put in place to promote Canberra as a tourism destination. If you read the motion you would assume from Mr Corbell's viewpoint that we have not done anything. That is far from the truth. In the 1996-97 financial year $5.4m was allocated to tourism and events promotion. That represented a significant increase on funding provided under the previous Government - that is, the Labor Government, some of whose members now sit opposite. In addition to this funding, which was greater than anything that the Labor Party ever put into it, $1.75m has been provided recently for the construction of the new Visitor Information Centre which is now open on Northbourne Avenue, and in recognition of the highly competitive and ever-changing tourism environment this Government took the initiative of creating the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation - an organisation with a clear commercial charter and the flexibility to respond to changing market forces.

With the creation of the corporation, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Government has provided significant additional funding of $350,000 for a new Canberra events fund. This brings the total amount available for attracting events to Canberra to almost $900,000. Mr Corbell is harping about $500,000 in addition to all of that, which he thinks should have been devoted entirely to tourism. If Mr Corbell ever gets into government and becomes a responsible Minister he will find that we do not have

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