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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5201 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

The ACT was represented by nine soloists in the callisthenics graceful solo championships. In the junior graceful section, Caitlyn Flint took equal third place in the closed division, Amy Minchin took equal third place in the closed division, Jenna Kratzel took second place in the closed division, and Caitlin Stavaruk took first place in the closed division and fifth place in the open division.

In the intermediate graceful section, Sandra Cappuccio took third place in the closed division, Stephanie Wigens took second place in the closed division, and Emma Young-Wright took first place in the closed division and fifth place in the open division. In the senior graceful section, Rose Booth took second place in the closed division and Catherine Wyett took third place in the closed division. Congratulations to ACT Callisthenics and to all those girls. Canberra will host the Australian national championships in July 2004 at the Canberra Theatre.

I will give a bit of praise to the government, which is perhaps a bit rare. I note that members of the opposition said, "Hear, hear!"in relation to Mr Hargreaves' dorothy dixer to the Chief Minister about the opening of the East Timorese embassy. I think it is quite appropriate that we in the ACT have supported that and are, in fact, supporting the embassy occupying an ACT government building until such time as the East Timorese people are able to provide their own embassy.

The record of Australia in terms of committing members of the AFP, including lots of Canberra-based officers, to help in the independence vote, the grave risks they faced there and the heroism they showed were truly remarkable and we can be terribly proud of them, as we can be of the Australian Defence Force, which went in soon afterwards. Australia has made a huge effort so far in terms of assisting in the birth of a new nation and lots of Canberra people have been involved in that. I think that it is particularly pleasing to see the help given by our local community and the ACT government to East Timor.

I am glad that Mrs Dunne mentioned William Hovell Drive. It is something that I have been very keen to see extended. Today, I had the pleasure of driving along it both ways because I had to go home and get something and it was really excellent. I noticed in the paper that the project actually started in 2000 under my colleague Mr Smyth as the Minister for Urban Services.

Mr Hargreaves did seem to leave out quite a number of projects when he mentioned a number of things being done. I would point out, for example, that the Higgins shops upgrade, which is to be celebrated shortly, started under an upgrade program launched by the previous government. I was just jotting down a few points in relation to those matters when he was saying that very little had been done in the outlying areas in previous years.

To show the nonsense of that I noted, apart from the William Hovell Drive project, the Kippax upgrade and saving the Kippax library, which was going to close. A process has been started which will see us getting a new library there. I also noted that the Belconnen pool will be opening soon. Despite budgetary constraints, there will be a $500,000 refurbishment of some arts facilities at Hawker and a theatrette at the Belconnen community centre.

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