Page 1026 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 15 March 2005
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There are improvements we can make. Once again, Dr Foskey raised the capacity or the potential for a community-based steering group or advisory group to provide some community connection to the range of events that the government is now committed to support, and I agree with that as well. It is something we already have in hand. From now and into other major community festivals or events, we will underpin them or support them with a community-based advisory or steering committee or some group that can connect those in-house organisers of these events from within the Chief Minister’s Department directly with the community to ensure that we can realise the aims and understand truly what it is that we are seeking to achieve.
This is not just about having a bit of fun; it is about ensuring that we as a community do create an atmosphere and a life but that we also meet a range of our aims around community connection and community support and the building of social capital and the strengthening of communities and the building of communities that we believe we can achieve through an events or festivals program of the sort that we have now developed in a coherent and very, very strategic way.
I also am particularly pleased that Clare Holland House were the winners of the citizen of the year award. There is no more worthy award and I think we should simply celebrate with them rather than taking the opportunity to make some political point about resourcing. I think that is tacky in the extreme and it certainly detracts from the great excitement that those people who received that award felt at its giving.
MR SPEAKER: The discussion is concluded.
Adjournment
Motion (by Mr Corbell) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Ulysses motorcycle club
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella) (4.26): Media attention on the 2005 Ulysses motorcycle club’s AGM held in Canberra last week was hard to miss. I would hazard to suggest, though, that it was harder to miss the 5,000-plus crowd that made it into Canberra at the beginning of last week and spent the week delighting in Canberra, enjoying their bikes and revelling in the festivities and occasion of the Ulysses AGM.
The more than 5,000 participants reported a fantastic week in Canberra. People I spoke to at the events on Saturday commented on the friendliness of Canberrans and the strength of the warm welcome our visitors from around Australia and from overseas received from our local community. The same sentiment of visitors was reported in the Canberra Times on Saturday—“absolutely fantastic” certainly sums up the experiences of Canberra during the week-long event that I heard.
The beauty of our surroundings in Canberra was a recurring comment, as our local Ulysses Club members will testify. The beauty of Canberra’s streets makes motorcycling in the city a joy. Our interstate visitors echoed this over the weekend. We had an
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