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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4284 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

free of charge. Representatives from local businesses and clubs were invited to participate through a sponsorship arrangement. People could register for a relatively small subsidised fee. Students from a number of secondary schools and colleges were invited to be ushers for the conference and to participate in the conference discussion and debate. All information relating to the conference was made available on the ACT's Internet site, and it will continue to be an information source for the community.

The conference brought together a wide cross-section of the Canberra community, including representatives of all sorts of associations - professional and business - politicians and government employees. I am pleased that we were able to attract so many local, national and international speakers, including Vicki Buck, the Mayor of Christchurch; Richard O'Brien, the Irish Ambassador; Frank Sartor, the Lord Mayor of Sydney; Aldo Giurgola, as we know, the architect of Parliament House; Lex Marinos; Wendy McCarthy; Rob de Castella; Barry Jones; and Annette Ellis - to name but a few.

Mr Whitecross: And Wayne Berry.

MRS CARNELL: And me. I was pleased that members of the Assembly, including Gary Humphries, Wayne Berry, Andrew Whitecross, Michael Moore and Kerrie Tucker, were also able to attend. I believe that, overall, their contributions helped to make the conference a real success. I would particularly like to thank Kerrie and Michael for believing in the capacity of the Canberra community to come up with a direction for our city and for believing that government is not about just the 17 people in this Legislative Assembly; that it is also about involving the community and allowing them to participate. I know that Michael, Kerrie and I share the view that, as time goes on, the community will, and should, require more and more input into the political process.

However, like many others at the conference, I was somewhat disappointed with the attack by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Berry, on the work done by the participants at that conference and with his lack of commitment to a bipartisan approach to the development of a vision and a strategic plan for Canberra. I was, however, pleased that the Commonwealth was well represented. The opening address was made by Warwick Smith, the then Minister for Sport, Territories and Local Government; a presentation on the Australian capital region was made by Michael Ronaldson, representing the Minister for Transport and Regional Development; and contributions were made by a number of key Commonwealth agencies, including the National Capital Authority. This level of involvement augurs well for an ongoing commitment by the Commonwealth to the development and implementation of a revised ACT strategic plan, consistent with the wishes of the Assembly.

As members may be aware, a key outcome of the conference was the communique developed by the participants. While the recommendations contained in the communique did not have unanimous agreement, they did have clear majority support at the plenary sessions. As I indicated in my closing address to the conference, the Government will be taking into account not only the recommendations of the communique, but all of the conference outcomes, when continuing to develop a revised strategic plan. In fact, Mr Speaker, I made a speech yesterday that brought together a lot of the outcomes of that conference and other work that has been done.

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