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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (7 August) . . Page.. 2477 ..
MR BERRY: The two-page business plan? Mr Speaker, nobody is more disappointed than we are that this is not going well for the government because we think it had the potential to do good things for the territory. We said at the time that we were doubtful about the government's ability to manage this event, and I am afraid that what we predicted is starting to come true. For example, $11/2 million extra per year has been approved by this Assembly because the government failed to factor in certain matters related to capital works and other improvements in the V8 car race. The territory has had to pay for that.
We know that $1.4 million is paid as an administrative fee to the organisers of the race. Nobody will tell us how much of that goes to the organisers, AVESCO. Something between zero and $1.4 million goes to AVESCO every year, but nobody will tell us. I reckon we are entitled to know that. I reckon that, as taxpayers, people in the community might like to know that as well. So, we have got $11/2 million extra a year and something between nought and $1.4 million going to AVESCO.
We have got a specific question from Mr Kaine about ticket numbers, and we have got the government saying, "We're not going to tell you until we've got them audited." I go back to what I said earlier: they are not going to tell us before they have got them audited so that we do not get two lots of bad news. If they release the figures on the tickets, there are reasonable expectations that the numbers will be down.
Nobody gets any joy out of that, least of all the territory taxpayer. But the questions it raises are: what happens in the outyears to this event, are we going to be asked for more money or will the government say they are not going to spend any more on it? Well, if they do not spend any more on it something is going to happen to the event.
Or are we going to get half a Floriade? If they are going to say to CTEC, "You mucked this up; you can pay for it yourself," we will get half a Floriade, or we will get one Floriade every second or maybe every third year. What is going to happen? These are the issues the government is now wrestling with in relation to that matter, and the failure of the minister to answer Mr Kaine's question has highlighted the issue. There are other strong rumours around that the media will report on this tomorrow. Wouldn't that be interesting in the context of the minister's failure to answer.
There are some important things about this V8 car race, and the most important of those is the inability of this government to manage-Bruce Stadium, Kinlyside, Feel the Power. You can hear the tom-toms. This is just another example of where the territory is being let down by an incompetent government-one, it now appears, that will not give us the facts and figures. We are going to have to pull teeth to find out a bit more about it. The Williamsdale Quarry, the rock concert, disability-the list goes on.
Mr Speaker, this is an important issue. The minister has been caught out for failing to answer. He has not failed to answer because he has not got the figures; he has failed to answer because he does not want to give us the information. They are going to try to delay it until they get the audited figures ready so that they only have to give them to us once. If they give them to us twice we will be disappointed twice, and I do not think the government wants to do that in this, an election year.
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