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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 158 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

be worked out in the Assembly - to the Prime Minister saying, "Why don't you consider this?", or following it up in a different way. But it is appropriate to oppose Mr Quinlan's amendment at this stage.

MR RUGENDYKE (11.42): Mr Speaker, I wish to speak to what has been tabled so far. The meeting held with representatives of Canberra business, various political parties and the other interested parties at the National Convention Centre was generally in agreement that there is no point whingeing about the loss of CHOGM to Brisbane. Rather, we should concentrate on what the ACT and the Commonwealth need to do to attract future meetings of that magnitude to Canberra. In fact, to highlight the ACT's need to lift its game to be able to host future meetings, I made a note at that meeting that the National Convention Centre is probably the first place that needs to be upgraded to a national standard.

To point out simple, basic things, the coffee was lukewarm, two of the four screws holding the handle onto the coffee pot were loose and you were not sure whether you were going to spill coffee all over your cup, and the teaspoon was bent. If they cannot put on a simple meeting for a dozen interested people, what hope have they got of handling a CHOGM? Mr Speaker, rather than whingeing about losing CHOGM and simply thumbing our nose at the Prime Minister in the form that Mr Stanhope's motion says we ought to do, we should support Mr Kaine's foreshadowed amendment and then support the amendment moved by the Chief Minister, which, I presume, will follow the vote on Mr Kaine's foreshadowed amendment.

Amendment (Mr Quinlan's ) negatived.

Amendment (Ms Carnell's ) agreed to.

MR KAINE (11.45): Mr Speaker, as I indicated before, the intention is to be more productive, and I do not believe that we are going to achieve very much by condemning the Prime Minister. I think that it is far better to ask him to enter into dialogue with the people of Canberra as to why he took the decision that he did. I have an amendment which would achieve that. It takes out most of the words of Mr Stanhope's original motion and inserts, instead, the words "requests the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr John Howard, to explain to the people of Canberra why the decision was made to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting at a venue other than Canberra, and to outline the reasons which, in his view, justify that decision". The Chief Minister or the Deputy Chief Minister mentioned a CHOGM task force that gave some argument. Were those the reasons that the Prime Minister used to justify his decision? If so, we would like his confirmation of that.

I think the amendment speaks for itself, Mr Speaker. But there is one other matter, of course. If my amendment were passed in that form, it would immediately undo the good work that the Chief Minister has done; so I need to amend the preamble by deleting all words after "Assembly" up to and including the word "meeting" and inserting those words in lieu thereof. That would leave Ms Carnell's amendment intact. I seek leave to move that amendment.

Leave granted.

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