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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1367 ..

There are about 330,000 Canberrans. If you divide $3.4 million in the last two budgets by 330,000 its about $10.24 per head; let us call it 10 bucks. So, if we start at $67 and it goes up by 10 bucks, according to Mr Corbell that jumps to $117. Clearly, one of these numbers is wrong. Perhaps Mr Corbell has inadvertently misled the house. He might like to come and correct whichever of these numbers is wrong. Was it 67? Did it go up by 10? Is it now 117? For the increase to have gone from 67, as is claimed, to 117—

MR SPEAKER: I think you should withdraw the reference to his having misled the house. You know how serious that is.

MR SMYTH: I withdraw the reference, Mr Speaker. If, as claimed, it has gone from $67 per head to $117 per head in the last two budgets, $117 minus $67 is about $50, and $50 times 330,000 Canberrans is about $16.5 million. So $3.4 million from $16.5 million leaves a missing $13.1 million. Perhaps Mr Corbell might like to come down and correct the record.

Canberra Deakin youth soccer team
Human rights

MR STEFANIAK (10.09): I rise on two points. Firstly, I rise to congratulate the Canberra Deakin youth soccer team. They were the only Canberra team in the national youth soccer competition and they were a particularly impressive team. I can recall their first win, which was during the Miss Croatia ball. And they have kept on winning. The way soccer is played, whichever team are on top at the end of the premiership round are the champions but they still play a final series. They could not actually lose their championship, even with a couple of games in hand. They then went on to win the northern championship, the grand final, by 4-2, with a crowd of about 2,000 people at McKellar oval. It was really quite spectacular and one of the best games of football I have seen for many a year. It was very skilful and they were a very impressive team. They then played the southern nationals. The national competition was divided in two—like a champion of championships round—and last week they won that one 2-1.

I would just like to extend to the Canberra Deakin youth team and everyone involved with them my congratulations for a particularly brilliant season. I certainly hope we see a few going around in the seniors in Canberra, but more likely I think they will probably be snapped up by major clubs around the country, and indeed overseas. Theirs was a particularly impressive performance. I would also like to pay tribute to their coach, Vid, who apparently has an excellent rapport with the players and brings out the best in them. I have met him on a few occasions and he is a very impressive man. I certainly wish him well in his quest for Australian citizenship. He has an Australian wife and I think he would be a wonderful addition to our country. I was happy to do whatever I could to support that.

On another issue, I note that Mr Stanhope put out a press release about his adventure in the UK in relation to human rights and about the various persons he met there who were very much in favour of them and said wonderful things about our own amazing all-singing, all-dancing bill. I would point out to him that that was not surprising given the persons he spoke to. They were all very much proponents of the UK Human Rights Act.

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