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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3126 ..

Ms McRae: But she cannot answer the question, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Whitecross has asked a question; he deserves an answer.

Mr Berry: Why does she not answer it?

MR SPEAKER: He may not like the answer he gets; but he deserves an answer, and it will not be assisted by his Labor colleagues interjecting.

MRS CARNELL: If that is what Mr Whitecross is saying, I think he is underestimating the Olympic feel in Canberra and the fact that most Australians would love to have the opportunity to live in an Olympic city in the run-up to the year 2000. Mr Speaker, the stadium will have 40,000 seats for Olympic soccer. I have every faith that Canberra can fill those seats. Obviously, Mr Whitecross does not believe that. The final cost on what ticket sales will be at the time has not been finalised at this stage. There is no doubt that we will have to sell more than 60 per cent of the seats. If we could not guarantee that, we were not going to get Olympic soccer, quite simply.

The arguments against Canberra were very interesting when we were tendering against such places as Newcastle, Wollongong and other cities in Australia. The detractors, and obviously those opposite would have fallen into that camp, said that Canberra cannot produce the crowds. They said that Canberra simply cannot do it; we are too little, we are the national capital, we are just not in the race. We said we could do it, that we can fill the seats, and we were more than happy to underwrite the $5m for the ticket sales because I know that Canberra and the surrounding regions and all the tourists we will get in for that event will fill the 40,000-seat stadium. I have faith in this city. Those opposite obviously do not.

MR WHITECROSS: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Chief Minister, in agreeing to underwrite ticket revenue amounting to 24,000 people per match for the preliminary rounds, were you aware that the average attendance for preliminary soccer matches associated with the Atlanta Olympics was 21,000, that in Orlando, a city with three times the population of Canberra, they averaged 14,140, and that the average ticket sales for preliminary soccer games at the Barcelona Olympics - in a soccer playing nation on a soccer playing continent - they managed to average only 7,800 per game for the preliminary soccer games? Chief Minister, do you concede that the figures you are using - the 24,000 and, indeed, the 40,000 you just said we would get - are rubbery and that you are exposing the ACT to a huge liability if the projected crowd figures are not realised? Finally, Chief Minister, have you sought the agreement of SOCOG to table the agreement you signed with SOCOG, so that this Assembly can investigate the level of financial liability to which your Government has exposed the taxpayers of the ACT? If so, will you table it now?

MRS CARNELL: That was a very long supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Again, those opposite, and particularly Mr Whitecross - no wonder his polling results were what they were - are on the wrong bus when it comes to the Olympics. Revenue streams are not just ticket sales; they are quite broad. They are such things as corporate boxes, program sales, car parking, revenue from accommodation - all the things that go with an Olympic event. I believe very strongly that we can fill the seats.

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