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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (26 November) . . Page.. 4670 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

entertainment provided by high-profile entertainers and which would be the national celebration broadcast across Australia.

Chief Minister, can you tell us why Mr Wood misled the community about the nature of the Australia Day in the National Capital Committee's proposal?

MR STANHOPE: The advice I have, which I just related in answer to the previous question, was that Australia Day in the National Capital applied for funding for a second concert, and that this was discussed by Australia Day in the National Capital with staff in Mr Wood's department. They were advised that there was an issue in the duplication of concerts. You can define "concert"in your way, Mr Stefaniak-this was really just entertainment in the park; it was not really a concert for the purposes of the festivals guidelines. The other is a real concert. It is a professional concert with professional singers-high quality artists-but this other concert is not really a concert; it is just people singing and entertaining in the park! It is actually not a concert at all; it is a picnic in the park-it is not actually a concert because they are not sort of professional or high-quality singers or entertainers that are delivering this picnic! They are actually just singers; it is not a concert! That is a great bit of interpreting there.

Mr Stefaniak: It is a picnic in the park.

MR STANHOPE: Yes, they called it a picnic in the park and then had singers. It was actually identified as an alternative concert. They were told it was a concert. They were told there was a policy in relation to the funding of events that are seen to duplicate existing activities. That was the advice that they were provided with on 9 July, Mr Stefaniak, according to the papers. Australia Day in the National Capital met with officers of Mr Wood's department on 9 July. The guidelines and the funding criteria were explained carefully. They were advised to be particularly clear that their proposal did not complement in any way, or duplicate in any way, the concert that had already been announced by the Commonwealth at that time.

That was the nature of the advice that Mr Wood gave yesterday. It is the nature of the advice that I have been provided today by Mr Wood's department in relation to issues around Australia Day in the National Capital. That is the position as advised to me, and I think it is quite consistent with what Mr Wood said yesterday; that is, that the view of the festivals committee and officers of Mr Wood's department was that this was a duplication, and that there was absolutely nothing to be gained in running, on successive days, Australia Day concerts. That was the advice that was given at the time-that we would not fund events that duplicated those that had already been announced.

As I said before, I think there is a real issue here. We acknowledge a real issue in terms of competition between the Commonwealth government and the ACT government and people from the ACT in relation to the celebration of Australia Day. It is an issue where we, as both the national capital and as a community of 322,000 people, do have some conflict in the way we seek to celebrate significant events such as Australia Day. I think it is a pity that the confusion around the celebration of Australia Day has developed. As I say, I have made an undertaking that we will be reviewing quite fully and completely how we as a government and a community support the celebration of Australia Day in the national capital in the future. We will avoid these issues in the future. We will almost

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