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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3304 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

will be right behind Canberra being part of the Olympic experience. They will be right behind the fact that Canberra has been placed in a position unlike that of most other cities in the world, and that is that we are an Olympic city - at least until those opposite are elected.

MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question, Mr Whitecross?

MR WHITECROSS: Thank you. Is the Chief Minister aware that what she has just said was not the truth, because I did not say that Birmingham was the biggest crowd drawer of the Olympic soccer? I said it was the biggest crowd drawer of the preliminary rounds, and Athens, which she referred to, was actually the city in which the finals were played, Mr Speaker. Is it not the case, Chief Minister, that your projection that you will sell out a 40,000 seat-stadium for eight nights during the Olympic Games is based on you defying the experience of two previous Olympics, Atlanta and Barcelona, where locals dominated the crowds, and selling over 60 per cent of the tickets to international visitors, not interstate visitors?

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I certainly hope we get as many international visitors as possible. We will be out there marketing heavily for international visitors to come to Canberra. Mr Whitecross says, "But you will not get them". If we were not basing the Sydney Olympics on international visitors, the Sydney Olympics figures would not stack up either. Australia is a small country; but we believe, and certainly SOCOG believes, that there will be a significant number of international visitors coming into Australia for the Games. The fact is that those opposite are negative about this. They would be equally as negative if we had failed. Just imagine what they would be saying if we had not won Olympic soccer for Canberra. They would be getting up over there and saying, "You, the Government, are a total failure. Why did you not get Olympic soccer?". The fact that we have got it shows that you can never make them happy. They are just a bunch of whingers.

Road Safety

MS TUCKER: My question is to Mr Kaine in his capacity as Minister for Urban Services. Mr Kaine, yesterday in the media you objected to the reduction of the speed limit in residential areas to 50 kilometres per hour because it would cost $1.5m. You effectively criticised the measure on the basis that only 30 per cent of fatal accidents and 40 per cent of road accidents happen on non-arterial roads. Applying evidence given to the Staysafe inquiry to your figures and the ACT road toll, the 50 kilometres per hour limit would save an average of one life and prevent 700 accidents a year. My question is this: If you think an initial one-off expenditure of $1.5m is too much to spend on saving one life and 700 accidents a year, will you tell the Assembly what price you put on the life and safety of Canberra road users? How cheap would the measure have to be for your Government to agree to introduce it?

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