Page 3171 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 August 2005
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product. For example, during the collection-building phase, a presentation was held at Dymocks Belconnen where attendees were able to suggest titles for purchase and to request specific services be incorporated into the master plan.
As we have discussed many times today, this government values the perspective of service users and accordingly listens through every available mechanism it has at its disposal and incorporates the feedback it receives in relation to its proposed policies and announcements. The library facility, which will be officially opened by Mr Stanhope on Tuesday morning, is a great example of the outcome of this positive community consultation—something which our colleagues opposite never really understood during their time on the government benches. That is why they never took innovative projects like the Kippax library any further than the basic rhetoric that we have come to expect from them.
The Liberal Party can dispute such claims till the cows come home but history does not lie. For six years, the Carnell-Humphries Liberal government ignored the demonstrated need of the west Belconnen region and, for instance, subjected readers in the area to the old portable shed that this facility replaces. The Stanhope government could not and would not allow such a state of affairs to continue and accordingly decided the time was right to act.
The Stanhope government is making a real financial commitment to education and culture in Ginninderra. The $3.5 million commitment to this facility is yet another example of this commitment. There is no better investment than one made in shaping the educational future of our society. This is a principle that the Stanhope government has long recognised, and today’s debates have shown that it is a principle that this government does act upon.
The books, tapes, DVDs, meeting rooms and services which are provided to the Kippax community from this library will result in tangible benefits for that community, both in a social and an economic sense. For instance, residents are more willing to participate in the community if centralised facilities like the Kippax library’s multipurpose community room are available.
Government can, however, only go so far. The west Belconnen public and indeed residents from the whole Ginninderra region are the important other half of this equation—the people who will make good use of these facilities. The area has now been provided with up-to-date recourses and facilities that further enable exploration of literature, history, fiction and fantasy. Books can take us on adventures which one could only dream of; they open our eyes to wonders across the world; they challenge our ideas and quench our continual thirst for knowledge.
Books and reading have always been an important part of my life. I fondly remember, as a child, visiting my local library in Purley, Surrey, England. It was a very different place to the modern facility the Stanhope government has delivered to the Kippax community. Irrespective of the surroundings I found myself in, it was a place that enabled my imagination to take flight and my life-long quest for knowledge to begin.
I remember clearly the huge globe of the world that took pride of place. It was at this globe where I spent many happy hours examining the names of far-away places and then
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