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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 5 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 1405 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

and the commitments that I think many people who support the Institute of the Arts feel he has made in relation to funding for the Institute of the Arts. I put that proposition to him most seriously. He knows in his heart of hearts that this cut is unjust. It has been exacted in a way which has been quite arbitrary. He knows how important the arts are for this community, and he does have a capability that other members in this place do not have. He can send the message to the Government that this cut is not acceptable.

Mr Speaker, the other point I want to make again comes to the issue of acting in good faith. I have before me the Select Committee on Estimates report for this year's budget, and I have turned to recommendation 12. Recommendation 12 says:

The committee recommends that the Government restore the Institute of the Arts funding for the current year to the same level as last year and that it retain funding at an appropriately indexed level in future years.

That is not a minority recommendation; it is not a recommendation that comes from a dissenting report; it is not a recommendation in the dissenting areas of the report. It is a recommendation in the majority area of the report, and it is a recommendation that Mr Rugendyke agreed to as a member of that Estimates Committee.

I feel very strongly, when you have an opportunity in a committee to argue the case in deliberative hearings, to work out the recommendations that you are comfortable with and which you put your name to as a member of a committee, that when that committee's recommendations come to this place you stand by them; you say that that is a recommendation that you want to see implemented because you have had the opportunity to consider it, you have had the opportunity to deliberate over it, you have also had the opportunity to change it if you are unhappy with what has been proposed in the chair's draft report.

This is the recommendation that has been brought down by the Estimates Committee, with the exception of Mr Hird who dissented. All other members accepted this recommendation, including Mr Rugendyke and Mr Osborne. I would urge Mr Rugendyke again to recognise that there is an issue about keeping faith with the recommendations that he makes. There is an issue of keeping good faith with those. It is much more difficult, I think, for anyone to argue that they can change their mind on this when they had been present at rallies and other demonstrations supporting the cause. (Extension of time granted) I thank members. Mr Osborne has not been present at these rallies and meetings which have been protesting against the cut. He has been quite noticeable by his absence. I would take that to mean that he is not prepared to support the cause that those people have been putting forward. But Mr Rugendyke has been present. Mr Rugendyke, as an elected representative, has an obligation to consider what message he is sending if he feels he cannot put his hand up in this place and support a cause that he has been supporting out in the public arena at rallies.

That is why I come back to my first point, Mr Speaker. There is an option here for Mr Rugendyke to oppose the area of this budget that deals with the cut to the ACT Institute of the Arts but not to oppose the Appropriation Bill as a whole. They are two very separate things. That is an option which I think those on the crossbenches

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