Page 3562 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 2005
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program. We are investing in a significant new public artwork for Lake Ginninderra and we, of course, continue to provide Strathnairn homestead to the community for arts activities. As Ms Porter—a dedicated member for Ginninderra—has just mentioned, the government is committed to the development of an arts and cultural facility on the shores of Lake Ginninderra which will provide Belconnen residents with a major new arts destination in the heart of Belconnen.
The new funding to the Belconnen Community Service has allowed them to enjoy a full-time community cultural development worker and to expand most significantly the range of activities they foster. The government has also allocated $200,000 towards the design of the new arts and cultural centre, and a further $500,000 in the next year. We are working closely with the Belconnen Arts and Cultural Centre community advisory group and Munns Sly Architects to develop a detailed functional requirements brief for the centre. The work includes detailed planning facilities to meet the needs of the community, both in the immediate future and in the longer term. The process has, of course, given very close consideration to connecting the new arts centre to the town centre and the lake shore to ensure complementarity with existing arts facilities in Belconnen.
In response to identified needs for outdoor events space and access to the centre and lake shore, the government has recently included a modest additional block of adjacent open space land on the lake shore into the program for the centre. That is block 2, section 187. The refurbishment of that space will connect the centre with other lake shore works that are currently underway in the vicinity of Lake Ginninderra. This will ultimately provide a well-designed lake shore promenade across the entire southern edge of Lake Ginninderra.
These are some of the things my government is currently working on with the Belconnen community. They, of course, are very significantly located to that major other addition to the cultural or arts facilities as expressed through the fantastic new Kippax library, a facility which I was very pleased to open just in the last month. With the opening of a fantastic new state-of-the-art library for west Belconnen, complemented by the very significant other works that are currently in train in relation to enhancement of the arts in Belconnen, this is a real reflection of this government’s commitment to Belconnen, to the electorate of Ginninderra and to the arts in Canberra.
Trade union membership
MRS DUNNE: My question is directed to the Acting Minister for Industrial Relations. Yesterday in the Assembly the Chief Minister said that members of the Master Builders Association had told him that they did not want the federal government workplace relations reforms. Scanning the news services lately, the minister would no doubt be aware—and alarmed to learn—that early this week the Victorian government pleaded guilty to discriminating against a contractor in the construction industry who had had a non-union agreement. Does the ACT government have a policy of preferring to deal with companies that require their employees to be members of unions?
MR CORBELL: The government supports employers taking appropriate steps to recognise the rights and entitlements of their employees: paying them award wages, meeting their superannuation obligations and meeting all the other obligations that you
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