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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 1538 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

the funding for the hockey pitch at Lyneham, and I am happy to see that that is in the budget. I might point out that my support for that funding was and is on the basis that hockey is a sport with a very high participation rate in the ACT and is a sport with a growing number of players. It is also a sport where at the elite level we have real medal prospects at the Olympics.

I congratulate Mr Stefaniak if he had anything to do with this shift in focus, and I hope it continues, because I can remember that the Government last year announced quite savage cuts to sport, particularly in the area of ground hire charges, which affected sport at the grassroots level - excuse the pun. The effect of those charges is still being felt. Let me make it clear that I believe the Government has not gone far enough down this path. Support for sport at the mass participation level is a central element of what would be my policy in sport and recreation. (Further extension of time granted)

I still have a concern about the position of the ACT Academy of Sport and their funding levels, and there seems to be a net decrease in the overall sport funding in real terms when CPI is taken into account, but overall I would like to think that Mr Stefaniak has exerted himself in the Cabinet and I strongly urge him to continue to do so. This is the one bright spot that I found in the budget. I believe other shadow Ministers are not as fortunate. Certainly, as shadow Treasurer, I find a significant number of problems with the budget, which I have covered.

Before I close I would like to add some positive dimensions. I do not want to be just congratulating Bill Stefaniak. We do have a vision on this side of the house. I do not think that A Clever, Caring Community is anything but glib. We need to address the economic development of the ACT. Most of us have seen reports of the Australian Capital Region Development Council and we can mouth the prospective economic development opportunities of information technology, transport and distribution, cultural tourism, environment tourism, education as an industry and Canberra as a great place to live.

If you are glib enough, you can regurgitate those as if you invented them yourself, speaking of absent friends. I have yet to learn that dark art, but I will refer to a couple of them. In the long term I would like to see Canberra aiming itself at becoming Australia's premier centre of education excellence. We are a small nation. I believe that we should try to achieve the position of being the Australian equivalent of both Washington and Boston in the United States - call ourselves Bostington, if you like - with centres of excellence which attract industries that work off them and complement the high education within the ACT.

At the extreme level, I have heard it put forward that the ANU would be an even greater university if it had no students. That is not as silly as it sounds, because there is an opportunity for the building of centres of excellence, for example, as a gateway to Asia, if we get past our Australian cringe and have confidence in ourselves. I think we know a lot more about getting into Asia and trading in Asia than most Europeans do. If there were a centre to develop and pass on those skills and make Australia the gateway to Asia from Europe, I think that one opportunity would build and generate Canberra as a centre of excellence, and once we passed the critical point it would start to grow in itself.

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