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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 7 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 2225 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the other day when I walked into the building which was named Howard Florey Centenary House, a thought struck me: As the old Holder High School, there were many Canberra kids through those corridors, some of whom may have already begun following in Florey's footsteps, researching the world of medicine. With the Health Protection Service going into Howard Florey Centenary House, it seems to me that more of that work will continue. I doubt, Mr Speaker, if we could have found a better name, a more appropriate name, for a particular building.

Mr Speaker, I think all members should recognise the great work of Howard Florey. This is an opportunity for us to recognise that Australians can be tall poppies. There are tall poppies in our society, some of them young, some of them getting on, who need encouragement and support. In the spirit of the achievements of Howard Florey, we should encourage them. He was a great man. I think we should all honour the work of Howard Florey.

MR BERRY (5.25): Mr Speaker, I would like to say a few things about the comments that Ms Carnell made in relation to tourism. The visiting journalists program is an important part of the landscape when it comes to tourism promotion. It is one that various tourism authorities in Australia and around the world embark upon to encourage wider reporting of the various benefits of individual tourist attractions.

Canberra, of course, has its share of critics when it comes to journalists because some constantly draw attention to Canberra as the centre of all political decisions. In many respects only the political decisions which impact adversely on the community are reported with the sort of enthusiasm that should be used in reporting the good things about the ACT and its pluses. Notwithstanding that, this is the political centre of Australia and that will always be the case, so I do not think we should get too precious about mention of Canberra in the political context. In fact, we ought to take advantage of it wherever we can.

The visiting journalists program is something which the community might find curious. Fair people might expect that Canberra's virtues will be picked up by journalists everywhere and reported widely. But it has become something of a competition around the world for various tourism authorities to attract respected and widely reported journalists to their city and to spend a lot of time and some money on showing them the various highlights of one's tourism points of interest.

I welcome CTEC's venture into the visiting journalists program and I trust that it brings better things in terms of tourism to the ACT, but they will have a hurdle to get over in the first place. They are going to have to get over the negative effects on the rest of Australia of that silly Feel the Power campaign with that silly, second-hand slogan. Regrettably, that was a government decision, and the Government deserves to be criticised. Mrs Carnell hinted that I might be concerned about the visiting journalists program. Well, I wish she had asked me first before she said that I would be critical of it, but that would be too much to expect.

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