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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1569 ..

MR HIRD: Mr Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, will you take personal responsibility for not building a football stadium big enough to accommodate all the people who want to see the mighty Brumbies in Saturday night's Super 12 grand final?

MS CARNELL: Thank you very much, Mr Hird, for the question. I absolutely take responsibility-

Mr Stanhope: Was the stadium built legally? Did you break the law to build that stadium, Harold?

MR SPEAKER: Order! Somebody will be getting sent off before the game begins.

MS CARNELL: It is a bad precedent, when we have young people in the gallery, to have those opposite interrupting all the time. Mr Speaker, I certainly take responsibility. Isn't it wonderful to see everyone in Canberra getting so excited about the Brumbies final on Saturday night? Wasn't it wonderful to see a sell-out crowd for the semifinal last week between the Brumbies and the Cats? Wasn't it great to hear so many Canberrans talk about how wonderful the stadium was and how well it coped with the quite significant crowds on Saturday night? The way the stadium handled the capacity crowd with relative ease proved that the government was right in building a state-of-the-art stadium, a top-class venue. As I walked around the ground, it was great to hear so many people commenting on the great improvement to the old stadium and how great a view they had of the game.

There is so much interest in this weekend's match that I am informed that at least 10 businesses are now on the waiting list for corporate facilities for Saturday night and that the suites are all sold out. Those opposite indicated that those suites would never sell; that they were absolutely hopeless; that there were no redeeming features. There is now a waiting list for Saturday night.

The semifinal last weekend and the final this weekend will give the ACT publicity, not just in the ACT and not just in Australia but right around the world. There are very large audiences in Europe, South Africa and New Zealand but in many other parts of the world as well, including the USA. What a great opportunity for the ACT to show off what a great stadium we have, to show off Canberra as an exciting and wonderful place to be.

The Brumbies have been wonderful ambassadors for the ACT since entering the competition. On behalf of, I am sure, most of the people here, I would like to thank them for the great work they have done and to wish them all the best for the weekend. They are truly a credit to themselves, to the Brumbies club, to rugby union and to Australian sport in general. Wasn't it great to see all of the tickets for Saturday night, including 2,000 tickets for standing room only, sell out before lunch? So, Mr Hird, maybe we should have built a bigger stadium.

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