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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 2 Hansard (28 February) . . Page.. 435 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The motion asks for documents relating to the tender and evaluation process which the minister referred to today and yesterday in question time, the consultants' reports which were referred to by the minister, and the minutes of the subcommittee and the CTEC board meetings dealing with the matter. It is quite clear from the legislation, the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation Act 1997, that the corporation shall furnish to the minister such information relating to its operation as the minister requires. It is therefore clear that this is an organisation that has to be accountable and the government has a responsibility to take an interest in it. I am sure that the organisation is accountable. The reason why I am asking for this is so that it is quite clear to everyone in the community that these decisions are well founded, which I hope they are.

There are certainly some interesting aspects to the decision to move CTEC to the airport which I raised in the question. If you look at the act that guides it, you will see under the functions of the corporation, particularly section 5 (d), that it is to establish and operate tourist events and festivals. This is an important function of the corporation, of course, and when any decision is made about where to locate CTEC we would want to see that the functions of the corporation as listed in the act are referred to and that there is a recognition that any move of the organisation would have to take into account its functions and be consistent with those functions. Section 5 (d) says "to establish and operate tourist events and festivals," section 5 (h) says "to undertake activities in cooperation with other persons where appropriate for the purpose of discharging its other functions," and section 5 (f) says "to provide tourism, travel information and booking services".

You would think that those three particular functions as listed in the legislation would require a location which had good access. One would hope, in this very greenhouse aware government, that that would include access by buses, not just by cars. This is not just about greenhouse, of course.

Mr Corbell: You can fly there.

MS TUCKER: You could fly there, Mr Corbell says. That is true. The other issue about access, of course, is the social issue of access. We know that CTEC, to its credit, has had a role in very important cultural festivities and events in our city, including multicultural events, the multicultural festival, Floriade and so on. We also know that a number of small community organisations are involved in those and the success of these events depends on the artistic community that is in Canberra and the wonderful wealth of talent, initiative and creativity that exists in our community. To facilitate that, of course, you want to have easy access to the office where these things are being centrally administered.

We also know, of course, that it is not necessarily the case that all these people have vehicles or cars to be able to drive to the airport. It is also quite difficult for any staff working in that location because there is no bus travel, so I am sure we will see that that was taken into account in any decision as well. I am interested to see how that has been taken into account.

This decision to move CTEC to the airport is interesting, and we are interested to understand why. Also, Canberra is a small community and there are very close relationships which are obvious and which I have already highlighted in question time.

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