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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 5 Hansard (8 May) . . Page.. 1377 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I have had some discussion with Mr Stanhope's staff, so I have a sense of the thinking of government on this, and I would like to know that Mr Stanhope will take into account what this motion is actually asking for. As I understood it-and I might have misunderstood it-the thoughts coming out of your office, Mr Stanhope, were that you already had the terms of reference, which is what you said, and also that your idea for the model was more of a top-down approach. It was not like the poverty task group model.

Because you have not specifically talked about the model tonight and have talked about the terms of reference as being ready, I am concerned that you might not really take into account this debate tonight. I hope that is not correct, because this idea originally came from a meeting of a wide range of community groups, which I talked about in my original speech. After that time there was discussion, and you came to that meeting, Mr Stanhope. I have on my notes that Jacqui Burke, Wayne Berry and Jon Stanhope were at that meeting. So you will be aware of the beginning of this idea. Pat Power spoke at that meeting as well, and he talked about the poverty task group.

A point has been made by other speakers tonight about the process of this sort of task force being almost as important as the recommendations that come out of it. It is in the nature of community development and community building to have a really broad ownership. I urge Mr Stanhope to not just pick something like a more top-down model of a ministerial advisory council-which was the original thinking, as I understood it, from his office-but to open up thinking on the exact form this task force will take, taking into account what people have said here tonight because we reflect the views of the community.

There is consensus that we need to have community ownership and really broad participation. Even if it is a bit cumbersome and messy, it is really valuable. As Paolo Freire once said, if we do not work with the people but try to do something to the people, regarding substance abuse, we will end up with what he called "alienated and alienating 'blah'." That is a really important consideration in anything that we do, but particularly in this issue because there is so much of the human experience in it.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Australian War Memorial

MR SMYTH (8.52): Mr Speaker, I move:

That this Assembly in acknowledging the success of the Australian War Memorial in winning back to back the title of 'Best Major Tourism Attraction' in the Australian Tourism Awards, calls on the Government to:

(1) acknowledge the success of the Australian War Memorial in twice winning Australia's most prestigious tourism award;

(2) write on behalf of the Assembly congratulating the Australian War Memorial and in particular its staff for their efforts and success; and

(3) hold a civic reception to honour the Australian War Memorial and to publicly thank its staff.

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