Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 1819 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

Festivals of this kind have to charge entrance fees to cover their cost. All major flower festivals in the world do.

What does Don Burke, one of Australia's top TV gardeners and host of Burke's Backyard, have to say about Floriade? In October 1996 he told the Canberra Times:

You must charge money to go in. No-one values anything that's free. It must be self-funding like any other part of the community.

That is what three people who know a lot about flower festivals, three people with very real experience in this area, think.

Mr Quinlan: What a load of rubbish!

MS CARNELL: I am sorry that you think what they said is rubbish.

Mr Stanhope: That nobody values anything unless you charge for it? What a load of garbage that is.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I am fascinated that Mr Stanhope perceives that we know more than those people, two of whom have been involved in Floriade and have been absolutely committed to the event. Last year, about only 70 per cent of people coming out of Floriade believed that it was a great festival. Many people believed that it was getting tired. The view from CTEC is that once that happens and you do not fix it immediately, people simply do not come back. Once people have been disappointed once, you might get them a second time, but you will not get them a third time.

What we needed to do, and what CTEC did, was determine how to go forward with Floriade to ensure that people who come to Floriade this year will not be disappointed by the show, will not be disappointed by the number of flowers, by the display or by the absolutely wonderful entertainment that is being put forward this year as part of the program. Everyone says, "Fine, that is all right but we do not want an entry fee for it". That is what Mr Berry's motion says. It says that we should go to a gold coin donation. A gold coin donation was tried at one stage and the proceeds went to charity. It raised between $2,000 and $6,000, from the memory of the people involved. In other words, a gold coin simply does not achieve much at all, unless you have a gold coin entry and you have a fence. If you put a fence up around it and you just have a gold coin entry at the gate, you might get a bit more than that, but it will not be all that much more.

It seems from Mr Berry's motion that he does not have a problem with the fence, because you would need the fence if you had a gold coin entry, but he does have a problem with CTEC and the ACT Government supporting a situation where Canberrans do not pay twice this year for Floriade, where they do not pay the $1.3m that it will cost to put Floriade on this year over and above what we have put into it before.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .