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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5159 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

not like them when you finished giving them their grant last year and when they did their report, why didn't you tell them? What counselling was given to these people? What process have you got in place to say, "We gave you $50,000, $40,000 or $30,000 last year and you didn't spend it properly"? Did you do it, Mr Wood? Did the government tell them they were getting wrong? Did they offer them guidance? Did they offer them suggestions? Did they offer them leadership?

They are mute, Mr Speaker. It is a pity that the Hansard cannot record mute. The interjections are not coming at all because the truth is that nothing was done. Nothing was done. And why wasn't anything done? They do not know and what are they going to do in the future? They do not know but whatever it is it will be ready for Australia Day 2005. That is a year from now. Forget about Australia 2004. My God, we forgot about 2004. What are we going to do? We will not give out any grants; we just forgot about it. It is like Groundhog Day, Mr Speaker.

I refer to the Hansard for 10 December 2002. What were we asking the government on 10 December 2002 in question time? The subject was the Australia Day Council. Mr Stefaniak asked his question of the minister for the arts and urban services, Mr Wood. He asked the minister whether he would be giving the Australia Day Council some money. We were going through this last year-same day, same place. It is a rerun of a bad American soap opera. But what did they do? What did they do in the interim? They did nothing; two-tenths of stuff all. It is appalling that we get to this position.

Members say that they have different views for Australia Day. That is beaut; you live in a country where you can express those views. Ms Tucker's comment that patriotism is the language of war is so appalling in the extreme when, over the years, the thing that has made us different to just about every other country in the world is that we have had continuous democracy and we have never had war on our soil.

It came close but there have never been enemy soldiers on our soil and the right that we have to speak in this place should be defended and should be celebrated on Australia Day. What is at the heart of Australia Day that people seem to be so much against? Oddly enough, the only good thing the government is doing is sponsoring the citizenship ceremony where people from every country under the sun can come to Australia and become citizens on Australia Day. They vie for the honour. They wait for the honour to be made a citizen on Australia Day because they see it as important. Clearly the government does not see it as important as some of the immigrants that have come to this country.

Ms Dundas spoke about high levels of funding for other activities. I could not agree more. There should be higher levels of funding for other things like Youth Week, but that is not an excuse for removing the funding to celebrate Australia Day.

We get to Mr Hargreaves and his opening analysis. He summed up the whole the debate in three words "Lot o' rot."That is deep; that is insightful; that is getting to the heart of it. Then he says-

Mr Hargreaves: It is so, and I said "emotional claptrap".

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