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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 3540 ..

I ask for leave to make a statement.

Leave granted.

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, I have earlier circulated this report to members and to interested people in the community. I table it today by request to facilitate debate, which I welcome. I do this in private members time, as it is my report and not an official report of the ACT government.

Tuggeranong Community Festival

Debate resumed.

MS MacDONALD (3.52): I rise today to support Mr Hargreaves' motion and to thank him for it. I also thank Minister Wood. I was very interested to hear what he had to say about previous festivals. Not being privileged to have spent as long as some people in this wonderful town, I am unaware of some of the history of Canberra-and perhaps I have the disadvantage of youth, Mr Speaker.

It is very sad to hear that festivals which used to be in existence in this town are no longer around. However, it is a wonderful thing to know that the Tuggeranong Community Festival is still in operation, and has been going strong. This year has been the strongest year in a number of years, to say the least.

I was heartened to hear about the money for festivals being provided by the current ACT government. I think that is a great thing. Hopefully, that will lead to counteracting any negative effects which have occurred in the past-where festivals and events have lost money to other things, or where funding has been totally cut, and sponsorship has not been able to be obtained to replace it.

I would like to talk about a number of events. These have been mentioned before, but certainly we had a wide variety of events taking place at the Tuggeranong Community Festival this year. Events included such things as the inaugural dinner-dance, the valley lawn bowls tournament, the junior indoor sports morning, the Lake Tuggeranong community sailing regatta-which went for both days-as well as the scouts branch canoe day.

Another water event held was the rowing club sprint regatta. There was also a soccer shield event which, regretfully, I missed. There was the women's AFL-and Stevie Wright giving a demonstration of kicking and hand-passing drills. Not being an AFL fan, which some would say is a huge disgrace, I did not attend that either. There was also a skateboarding competition called Frenzy-and Mr Hargreaves mentioned they were trying to injure themselves greatly. I am sure they are all very capable, and managed to not do that.

There was also the communities at work kids corner. That was great. You need stuff for the kids to do, to keep them occupied, especially the littlies of eight years and under. Things to keep them occupied included the fact that they got to meet Humphrey B Bear,

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