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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5135 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

that the federal government was doing it. The excuse then changed to: "We don't want two concerts."I said, "Why can't we have two concerts on successive nights? Who cares how many concerts there are. Celebrate it because it's Australia Day."

There are not two concerts, but there is definitely a concert on the eve of the 25th to celebrate Australia Day. But on the following day, the 26th-Australia Day-Australia Day in the National Capital Inc wanted to organise an event called Picnic in the Park. Its application states:

This will take the form of inviting the community to bring a picnic lunch to Commonwealth Park for a full afternoon of entertainment from stage 88. The finale of this entertainment program will be a specially commissioned work for Australia Day under the theme of 'an Australian journey'.

We can quibble about whether or not it is a concert. Irrespective of that, whatever it was going to be, it was going to be ours; it was going to be local, genuinely Canberran and, as in previous years, should have been sponsored by the ACT government-as it should be in the coming years. But for reasons unexplained, and for excuses bumbled over, this year the Australia Day in the National Capital Committee will not receive the funding it needs.

If we go back to the original excuse that we do not want two concerts because the feds are doing one, the interesting question is: why do we have two Christmas trees? There is a national Christmas tree up in the mall that is now lit and glowing. Some time later this month the minister, no doubt, will launch the Christmas tree in Garema Place. "Let us get rid of the Christmas tree. We do not want duplication; you can't have two of anything in this town"-that would be a terrible thing.

Let us take it further: let us get rid of the planning system. If the feds are doing it, we do not have to do it. Let us get rid of ACTPLA! Mr Corbell, you have just lost your ministry because, under the logic that Bill Wood applies to this, anything the feds are doing we should not do.

Mr Speaker, your job is at risk: there are two parliaments in this town. Under the logic that Mr Wood applies to this, perhaps one of the parliaments should go. The feds are doing it, so why would we have the temerity to do something the feds are doing anyway? The logic of that just falls away when you examine how ridiculous it really is.

Then we get to the excuse that Australia Day in the National Capital Inc did not do as it was told. It was told to change its application as it did not meet the guidelines. One of the excuses was that the organisation did not provide enough detail, that it provided limited detail. This organisation has been applying for these grants for well past 10 years now and has been running these events for a period longer than that. I have a copy of its application, which is six pages long. It covers what the organisation would do, says what might go if other funding is not provided and how it will address the criteria and answers the questions that the government asked of it-and it has been rejected by the government because it does not have enough detail.

I am not sure if Australia Day in the National Capital Inc were told that they did not provide enough detail. In my discussions with them it appears that they were the ones

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