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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5151 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

I was thinking about this today. Over the Christmas holidays we will be driving north. There is a place that we often stop at near Bundaberg. It is called Apple Tree Creek. Apple Tree Creek always stands in my memory because it has a fantastic huge park in the middle of town. It is by a creek. It has a gazebo or bandstand and a memorial-a cenotaph to the people who fell in the First World War. This is a minute town and it has a huge cenotaph with probably 40 or 50 names on it. On Australia Day the people of Apple Tree Creek will go to that place and have a community picnic. They will play cricket under the shade of the trees. But the people of Canberra will be deprived of a similar gathering because of the meanness and stinginess of this Labor government.

This is something that the people in Canberra should be appalled about. We are talking about a simple straightforward picnic. I do not know how many times in the past 23 years I have lived in Canberra that I have been to Australia Day in the park and how many times I have heard Sirocco play. Sirocco is almost part of the tapestry of Australia Day in the national capital, but somehow we can't have that this year because that would be duplicating the concert.

As Mr Smyth said here today, this is not really about duplication. We duplicate things all over the place in the ACT. We have two planning systems. We have two Christmas trees. We have two Labor parties. Shall we do away with Mr Stanhope's Labor Party and replace it with Mr Latham's Labor Party? If we are doing away with duplication, let's do away with the lot.

We had a whole litany of excuses: there was duplication; the people did not have enough detail. But I ask this: if there was not enough detail in the submission, did anyone from the bureaucracy get back to them and ask whether a bit more detail could be provided? I think the answer is no. A whole lot of things were said. I do not think I heard the one, "The dog ate my homework"but I could have been mistaken.

What this boils down to, Mr Speaker, is a complete abdication by the government. Little town councils in country New South Wales and country Queensland can put some money into Australia Day. But the governing organisation for the national capital of Australia is too mean to do it, because it does not quite fit in with their social and political landscape.

I just had this pointed out to me: the opening pages on the website for National Australia Day state, "Celebrate what's great."Yes, Mr Speaker; we should celebrate what's great: celebrate our heritage; celebrate the fact that generation after generation of people found their home in Australia when there was nowhere else to go. Be concerned, Mr Speaker, that at the moment we don't seem to be as open as we were- that we do not seem to be as open as was the case when my family, when the Scarrabelottis came to Australia. Be concerned; ask the questions; delve. But don't turn away from our proud history because of something that is happening now.

On the homepage of National Australia Day "Celebrate what's great", you have a rundown of events along the side of the page. If you click on each of the states, it will tell you what is going on. In New South Wales you have big events. It tells you what is on locally. It gives you addresses; it names ambassadors; it mentions children's centres. It tells you where you can go to fly your flag-all these sorts of things. This is repeated

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