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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5161 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

because we like a party. The problem with Australia Day in this country this year is that there will not be a government-sponsored celebration of Australia Day in the nation's capital at the local level.

If Mr Wood had gone a little further on the website he was so proudly quoting from earlier, he would have seen that the whole purpose of it was to encourage local activity. The irony, Mr Speaker, is that the Australia Day in the National Capital Committee will now get, I think, $30,000 from the federal government to carry out local activity when the local government has given them zip. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

If there is something wrong with the committee, why have they never been told? If you do not like the way it has been done, what have you done about it? If you are going to change something why, like everything, does it take two years? What are we going to have? Probably it will be the standing operating procedure of the Labor government-to have a review. We will call for submissions. We will have an inquiry. We will introduce some sort of paper, and two years from now we will come up with a process to celebrate Australia Day. In the interim we will probably miss Australia Day 2005 as well.

This is Australia. It is Australia Day. It might not be perfect. It might not be everything that you want. But if we work together, maybe we can make it a bit better, and maybe we should have brought this debate on much earlier so that we as a local community in our Assembly might have had a bigger discussion about how we see ourselves in the context of this country. But we have not had that opportunity; so maybe next year we will do it. Before 2005, we may do it a little bit earlier.

The problem is that next year Australia Day is approaching. It is a little over a month away. And the sad shame of it is that in the nation's capital on Australia Day, there will not be anything sponsored by the local government. Members, please support this motion because it is important we celebrate it appropriately.

MR SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.

Question put:

That Mr Smyth's motion be agreed to.

The Assembly voted-

Motion negatived.

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