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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 8 Hansard (27 October) . . Page.. 2288 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Clubs provide, in the first instance, a service to their membership. Clubs have assumed an incredibly important place in the lives of an enormous number of Canberrans. I hear stories that the Southern Cross Club has 60,000 members. That is staggering. It is true, but nevertheless staggering, that licensed clubs within the ACT have become the focus of the life of many Canberrans in terms of their access to entertainment, their access to a safe, friendly environment, their access to good restaurants and their access to cheap restaurants. To criticise the ACT club industry on the basis of the level of its contributions to the community without taking into account the incredible social value and the social function which clubs perform in the ACT is, in a way, to demean the role which those clubs play.

A significant issue for us here in Canberra is the extent to which we have lost a sense of community. I notice it particularly in Belconnen. The sense of community has dissipated as a result of the decline in suburban shopping centres. The sense of community has declined as a result of the closure of most of the suburban service stations in Belconnen. You have to go to a major suburban centre in Belconnen to get to a chemist or a newsagent these days. The sense of community has almost been knocked out of existence. All these things have led to a very significant decline in local communities and a sense of community.

It seems to me that clubs are fulfilling the role that in times past has been fulfilled by vibrant suburban shopping centres co-located with churches and schools. There has been a significant decline in the social fabric in some parts of Canberra, and clubs are meeting that need to a very significant extent. I think the contributions by the two Ministers do not do credit to the vital role which clubs fulfil.

I think there are other aspects of this that we need to keep in mind. The majority of members of boards of clubs are not paid officials. They are people who act for the clubs out of a sense of the contribution which they wish to make to their local community. That is certainly the case, for instance, with the Labor Club. There are people who, through a sense of determination to foster the aims that those clubs espouse, give very willingly enormous amounts of their time to make those clubs vital community assets. We must look at those aspects of this debate in isolation of the debate in terms of the dollars and cents which individual clubs might be providing to the so-called community.

There are lots of ways of contributing to the community. We do it otherwise than through donations. We do it through the range of services that those clubs provide to their communities, such as entertainment, the restaurants, the food, the safe environment, a place to meet friends, and a myriad other things. We must keep that in mind as part of this debate. To do otherwise is to simplify it, to demean it, and to miss the point and the role that clubs play in Canberra.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

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